Albania signs the first ever international treaty to combat organ trade
Albania signs the first ever international treaty to combat organ trade
More than a dozen countries have agreed to enforce laws to fight trafficking in human organs, a business that exploits the world’s poorest people and earns criminals up to $1.2 billion in illegal profits every year.
Albania, Austria, Belgium and Britain were among 14 nations to sign the first ever international treaty to combat the trade, Europe’s leading human rights body said on Thursday.
With an estimated 10,000 black market transplants carried out each year, the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Organs would make it a crime to extract organs from people without their “free, informed and specific consent”.
It would also make it illegal for the donor or a third party to make money from organ transplants and gives victims the right to compensation.
“Most of the trafficking of kidneys and other organs in the world flows from poor to rich countries, and within poor countries, from poor to rich people,” said Ivan Koedjikov, head of Action against Crime at the Council of Europe.
