Daily Star: Iraq's poor trade in human organs in search of money

Um Hussein reached the breaking point where he suffered with her ​​husband and her four children from extreme poverty unchanged if millions of Iraqis. Her husband - Ali - unemployed and suffers from diabetes and troubles heart disease. 
Over the past nine years , was the mother ofHussein is the breadwinner of the family by the service in the home, but the day you feel exhausted and no longer able to work. 
She says , "I'm tired and we can not raise the money to pay rent and wages, food and medicine requirements of children. " The family lived in the house from one room east of the capital Baghdad, where their house collapsed a few months ago, but survived thanks to the help of friends and acquaintances. The 
pair says , " I worked in every area comes to mind, butcher, daily - wage workers, Knassa." "Today we arenot asking for money and food , but people are kindly by us. And I have asked that combines bread crumbs litter the street to eat." As a 
result of this poverty, or whether Hussein was forced to do a big sacrifice. He says , " I decided to sell my kidney , where I can no longer provide the needs of my family, that 's better than selling my body or live on handouts." Contact couple dealer is illegal to sell Cletehma but initial tests proved the safety of their members enough for transplantation. Znhma disappointed, but they are thought to dissolve desperate, Ali angrily says ,"because we thought our situation desperate to sell Faculty born. Do anything but beg. I do not know why we got into this situation?". The couple did not do it, Just thinking about it made ​​their hearts Atahtman. 
Grinding poverty to make trade a kidney and other organs of the body phenomenon in the capital Baghdad.Approximately 22.5% of Iraq 's population live in desperate poverty, according to World Bank 2014 statistics, where gangs suffered 10 thousand dollars for college, which is aimed at Iraq 's poor made ​​him a new center for trade members in the Middle East. 
Says Firas al - Bayati, a lawyer at Human Rights, " the phenomenon is spreading authorities can not fight it . I personally handled over the past three months , with 12 people arrested for selling their kidneys. poverty was the reason behind it. Imagine the father of unemployed has no source of income to support his family, sacrificing himself. I I consider to be a victim and to defend it. " 
in 2012 the government passed a law in an attempt to combat trafficking in human beings and organs. Allows for relatives only donate organs each other for some consensual, he went Members traders visiting theidentities of the seller and the buyer to prove that they are close. " 
Al - Bayati said adds penalties ranging from three years in prison to the death penalty, is not considered thelaw an excuse for these deals poverty. He says , " It is very easy to forging identities, but the government will soon issue new identity cards impossible to forge. " 
in the high - security institution, serving Mohammed - father of two children - his sentence with ten others convicted of trading in human organs." in the beginning I did not feel guilty , but I saw it a humanitarian issue, but after a few months I spent in this trade began questioning Bokhalaqatha because of the miserable vendors circumstances, crash my heart and I see young people selling their organs for money. "in the month of November 2015 were arrested Mohammed in front of a government hospital in Baghdad after the reincarnation of a personal police officers buyer. most transplants members of illegal conduct in the civil hospitals, especially in Iraqi Kurdistan, says Mohammed, since the restrictions is tight as in Baghdad. but such operations are also taking place in government hospitals where acknowledges surgeons difficulty checking and documentation of each case. 
He says Oqaili tributary, the surgeon in the disease and kidney transplant center in Baghdad, "there is no law in the world carries the surgeon responsible. It is true that we have doubts in some cases, but this is not enough to prevent the surgery because humans die without it . "