'One-kidney village': Afghans sell organs to feed loved ones

HERAT • Jobless, debt-ridden and struggling to feed his children, Mr Nooruddin felt he had no choice but to sell a kidney - one of a rising number of Afghans willing to sacrifice an organ to save their families.

The practice has become so widespread in the western city of Herat that a nearby settlement is bleakly nicknamed "one-kidney village".

"I had to do it for the sake of my children," Mr Nooruddin told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) in the city, close to the border with Iran. "I didn't have any other option."

Afghanistan has been plunged into financial crisis following the Taliban takeover six months ago, worsening a dire humanitarian situation after decades of war.

The foreign aid which once propped up the country has been slow to return, with the hard-line Islamists also cut off from Afghan assets held abroad.

The trickle-down effect has particularly hurt Afghans like Mr Nooruddin, 32, who quit his factory job when his salary was slashed to 3,000 Afghanis (S$44) soon after the Taliban's return, mistakenly believing he would find something better.

But with hundreds of thousands unemployed across the country, nothing else was available.

In desperation, he sold a kidney as a short-term fix.

"I regret it now," he said outside his home, where faded clothes hang from a tree, and a plastic sheet serves as a window pane.

"I can no longer work. I'm in pain and I cannot lift anything heavy."

His family now relies on their 12-year-old son, who polishes shoes for 70 US cents (95 Singapore cents) a day, for money.

Mr Noorudin was among eight people AFP spoke to who had sold a kidney to feed their families or pay off debt - some for as little as US$1,500. It is illegal to sell or buy organs in most developed nations, where donors are usually related to the recipient or are people acting out of altruism.

In Afghanistan, however, the practice is unregulated.

"There is no law... to control how the organs can be donated or sold, but the consent of the donor is necessary," said Professor Mohammad Wakil Matin, a former top surgeon at a hospital in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Afghans desperate for money are usually matched by brokers with wealthy patients, who travel to Herat from across the country - and sometimes even from India and Pakistan.

Ms Azyta's family had so little food that two of her three children have recently been treated for malnourishment. She felt she had no choice but to sell an organ, and openly met a broker who matched her with a recipient from the southern province of Nimroz.

"I sold my kidney for 250,000 Afghanis," she said from her small damp room. "I had to do it. My husband isn't working, we have debts."

Now her husband, a daily labourer, is planning on doing the same.

On the outskirts of Herat lies Sayshanba Bazaar, a village made up of hundreds of people displaced by years of conflict. Known as "one-kidney village", dozens of residents have sold their organs after word spread among destitute families of the money to be made.

From one family, five brothers sold a kidney each in the last four years, thinking it would save them from poverty.

"We are still in debt and as poor as we were before," said Mr Ghulam Nebi, showing off his scar.

In developed nations, donors and recipients usually go on to lead full and normal lives, but their after-surgery health is usually closely monitored - and also dependent on a balanced lifestyle and diet. That luxury is often not available to poor Afghans who sell a kidney and still find themselves trapped in poverty - and sometimes in ill health.

Ms Shakila, already a mother of two at 19, underwent the procedure shortly before the Taliban seized power, bypassing a broker by searching out a patient at a Herat hospital. "We had no choice because of hunger," she said.

She sold her kidney for US$1,500 - most of which went to settle the family's debt.

Mother-of three Aziza, meanwhile, is waiting for her opportunity after meeting a hospital staff member who is trying to match her with a donor. "My children roam on the streets begging," she told AFP, tears welling up.

"If I don't sell my kidney, I will be forced to sell my one-year-old daughter."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE