Organ Trafficking During Times of War and Political Conflict

Organ Trafficking During Times of War and Political Conflict

Organ Trafficking During Times of War and Political Conflict

EXCERPT FROM PUBLICATION:

“Here, I will address another and more hidden dimension of organ trafficking: the plunder of the bodies of the enemy during or in the aftermath of wars, with the complicity and collaboration of militarized police states. The theft and plunder of enemy bodies, living and dead, during times of war, has a long genealogy (Harrison, 2013). Medicalized executions for organ procurement for transplantation and for commercial uses during political conflict, civil wars, and ethnic cleansings represent a worst-case scenario and a collective human nightmare: the fear of being cannibalized while living or dead. In each of the cases documented by Organs Watch bearing on disappeared bodies, illegal dissections, and the harvesting and stockpiling of organs, tissues, and other body parts (limbs, torsos, and heads) from the bodies of the enemy, fact and fiction, truth and rumor, the hallucinatory and cold, forensic medical facts are often combined.”