A Global Social Problem: Illegal Organ Harvesting in China
Medically, organ harvesting involves the use of surgery to remove organs and tissues or even bones from someone for the purpose of transplanting them into patients who need them. On the other hand, illegal organ harvesting entails the idea of human trafficking, where certain groups of people have their organs, tissues or bones surgically taken away from them against their will. This is deemed as a social problem, defined sociologically as a phenomenon regarded as bad or undesirable by a significant number of people, or a number of significant people who mobilize to eliminate it.
Illegal organ harvesting is seen by many governments to infringe upon human rights, as it is regarded as a taboo practice by many societies across the globe. Furthermore, committing illegal organ harvesting clashes with many articles of the Universal Declarations of Human Rights which many governments abide by. For example, Article 3 of the declaration states that “[all humans] have the right to life, liberty and security of [their] person,” and illegal organ harvesting is in discord with this article as individuals are often exploited; their lives may be lost during the forced surgical procedure too. One case which has garnered a lot of attention over the years would be the Organ…show more content… According to witnesses, the Falun Gong members were taken to secret locations for illegal organ harvesting and were then cremated so that there could be no evidence that could be traced back to where the organ came from. These secret locations were said to be found throughout China. Alarmed, the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong in China (CIPFG), which is a non-governmental organisation from Washington D.C., U.S.A, employed David Matas and David Kilgour from their Canadian branch to investigate these allegations. David Matas is