This is popular front a podcast focused on the niche details of modern warfare and

underreported conflict with me Jake Hanrahan.

Today we're speaking to with me Jake Hanrahan.

Today we're speaking to writer and researcher Sean Column.

He has been investigating the illicit trade of human organs specifically when it relates to people trying to

flee war and conflict just as a warning to anyone listening to this episode is very grim.

Sean is going to explain to us how this awful business all works.

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slash Popular Front. I think before we get into the kind of the conflict and organ trafficking within

war and conflict, maybe just explain what actually organ trafficking is because it's one of these topics that's kind of

often it will be almost like shrouded in a kind of fictional conspiracy kind of thing but it's a very real issue right maybe just explain to us like what it actually is

Yes, so the organ trade is really about buying and selling kidneys and that's illegal everywhere in the world apart from Iran actually where they have

a regulated market.

So when people talk about trafficking generally that kind of conjures up images of people being

kidnapped or waking up in a bathtub missing a kidney.

But for most of the cases I've come across, people have sold a kidney and

agreed to sell a kidney, but because of their economic circumstances. And a lot of the people

that I spoke to were asylum seekers or refugees or people who had their asylum claims

turned down and for them selling the kidney was an economic option of last resort.

So trafficking does happen and people are physically coerced into selling the kidney

in some cases but generally speaking

when we're talking about the organ trade it's it's the illegal transaction it's selling the

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