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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Matthew Weaver

‘There is a level of complacency’: trial exposes UK’s vulnerability to organ harvesting

Sonia Ekweremadu, 25, with her prospective donor days before they were falsely presented to the Royal Free hospital as cousins.
Sonia Ekweremadu, 25, with her prospective donor days before they were falsely presented to the Royal Free hospital as cousins. Photograph: Metropolitan Police/PA

The UK is supposed to have one of the best systems in the world for preventing vulnerable people being exploited for their organs. How then did one of its biggest hospitals become embroiled in the macabre trade of kidney harvesting?

The UK’s first trial organ trafficking trial has exposed alarming vulnerabilities to a illegal trade that makes up 10% of transplants worldwide. The case has highlighted how poverty can tempt some people to sell their body parts to those willing to exploit an acute global shortage of organs for donation.

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