PHNOM PENH: A Cambodian court on Friday sentenced three people to between 10 and 15 years jail for organ trafficking, after they persuaded poor Cambodians to sell their kidneys to wealthy compatriots undergoing dialysis in Thailand.

The convictions were the first for organ trafficking in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

Yem Azisah, 29, received a 15-year jail sentence after Phnom Penh Municipal Court found her "guilty of trafficking people with the purpose of organ removal".

Her step-father Phalla, 49, who has been released on bail, and her 22-year-old brother-in-law Pheng Sabay, who remains at large, were sentenced to 10 years each as accomplices in kidney trafficking, the judge said.

The court also ordered the trio to pay $7,000 to each of their victims.

Yem Azisah and Phalla were arrested in July when two people -- both cousins -- filed a police complaint saying they had been persuaded to sell their kidneys by the group for wealthy Cambodians on dialysis.

The removal procedure was done in a gleaming hospital in neighbouring Thailand.

AFP interviewed one of the gang s victims last summer -- an 18-year-old man.

From a tumble down shack on the outskirts of Phnom Penh he described resorting to selling his kidney for $3,000 in 2012 because of grinding poverty and mounting debts.

Trafficking is a widespread problem in impoverished Cambodia and police routinely investigate cases linked to the sex trade, forced marriage or slavery.

But this was the first case related to organs, a trade more common in places like India and Nepal.

The complicity of donors, whether compelled by poverty or coerced by unscrupulous brokers, makes it an under-reported crime which is difficult to expose.

In August media reports emerged about new alleged organ trafficking cases at a military hospital in Phnom Penh.

But police and court officials, who investigated the case, said it was a training exercise between Chinese and Cambodian doctors, using voluntary Vietnamese donors and patients.

Driving the demand for a black market in organs is the globally soaring number of sick patients waiting for transplants, especially kidneys.

http://dunyanews.tv/index.php/en/Crime/ ... ey-traffic

General Mackevili wrote:I wonder how many are successful. And a price list wouldn't be too much to ask for.

PM me. We don't want CEO to be accused of trafficking

What disgusting maggots

Mrs Stroppy and I have a very close relationship with an orphanage near Lake Toba in Sumatra. When we were there we were told that the older boys, now young men, have been taught to be vigilant over the little children as kids from the village are regularly killed and harvested of organs, and then tossed in the jungle like trash - possibly by family members. The organs are said to be for the Thai and Chinese markets. Apart from the absolute atrocity of this practice, you'd have to wonder how many organs are still viable once they are trafficked. Cannibalism is still practiced in that area.

For the record, I only want to buy a heart

Just as well because brains are more expensive.

General Mackevili wrote:

Anchor Moy wrote:

General Mackevili wrote:I wonder how many are successful. And a price list wouldn't be too much to ask for.

PM me. We don't want CEO to be accused of trafficking

For the record, I only want to buy a heart.

rozzieoz wrote:What disgusting maggots

Agreed. Leaving off a price list is thoughtless.

But if you're pumping the same cold blood through it, will the new heart make a difference?