101 East

Asia’s Kidney Black Market

We explore Asia’s organ black market, from the villages of Nepal to the Indian city known as the ‘Great Kidney Bazaar’.

In rural Nepal, an entire village shares a secret. Every family here has at least one member who has sold their kidney to traffickers.

Each year, international organ trafficking gangs convince 10,000 mostly poor people to give up a kidney. Sometimes the donors get paid for it, sometimes they don’t. But the cost to their health can be devastating.

Most of their kidneys end up in India, often in Calcutta, which has been nicknamed “The Great Kidney Bazaar”.

101 East travels the kidney trafficking route, talking to the donors, police, brokers and doctors involved in this bloody black market. 

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