Myanmar villagers reveal ‘desperate’ illegal kidney sales

“I just wanted to own a house and pay off my debts – that’s why I decided to sell my kidney,” says Zeya, a farm worker in Myanmar.

Prices had soared after a military coup in 2021 triggered civil war. He could barely feed his young family and was badly in debt.

They all lived in his mother-in-law’s house, in a village where thatched houses lined dirt roads, a few hours’ drive from the country’s largest city, Yangon.

Zeya, whose name has been changed to conceal his identity, knew of local people who had sold one of their kidneys. “They looked healthy to me,” he says. So he started asking around.

He is one of eight people in the area who told BBC Burmese they had sold a kidney by travelling to India.

Illegal organ trading is a problem across Asia, and Zeya’s story gives an insight into how it takes place.
Arranging the deal

Buying or selling human organs is illegal in both Myanmar and India, but Zeya says he soon found a man he describes as a “broker”.

He says the man arranged medical tests and, a few weeks later, told him a potential recipient – a Burmese woman – had been found, and that both of them could travel to India for the surgery.

In India, if the donor and recipient are not close relatives, they must demonstrate that the motive is altruistic and explain the relationship between them.

Zeya says the broker forged a document, which every household in Myanmar must have, listing the details of family members.

“The broker put my name in the recipient’s family tree,” he explains.

He says the broker made it appear as if he was donating to someone he was related to by marriage: “Someone who is not a blood relative, but a distant relative”.

Then, he says, the broker took him to meet the recipient in Yangon. There, he says a man who introduced himself as a doctor completed more paperwork and warned Zeya he would have to pay a substantial fee if he backed out.

The BBC contacted this man afterwards, who said his role was to check whether a patient was fit to undergo the procedure, not to check the relationship between donor and recipient.

Zeya says he was told he would receive 7.5m Myanmar kyats. This has been worth somewhere between $1,700 and $2,700 over the past couple of years – the unofficial exchange rate has fluctuated since the coup.

He says he flew to northern India for the operation and it took place in a large hospital.

All transplants involving foreign nationals in India must be approved by a panel called an authorisation committee, established either by the hospital or by local government.

Zeya says he was interviewed, via a translator, by about four people.

“They asked me if I was willingly donating my kidney to her, not by force,” he says.

He says he explained the recipient was a relative and the transplant was approved.

Zeya remembers the doctors administering the anaesthetic before he lost consciousness.

“There were no big issues after the surgery, except that I couldn’t move without pain,” he says, adding that he stayed in hospital for a week afterwards.

‘Fake mum’

Another donor, Myo Win – also not his real name – told the BBC he too had pretended to be related to a stranger.
“The broker gave me a piece of paper, and I had to memorise what was written on it,” he says, adding that he was

told to say the recipient was married to one of his relatives.

“The person assessing my case also called my mum, but the broker arranged a fake mum for the call,” he says. He adds that the person who answered the call confirmed he was donating his kidney to a relative with her permission.
Myo Win says he was offered the same amount of money as Zeya, but that it was described as a “charitable donation”, and he had to pay the broker about 10% of the amount.

Both men say they were given a third of the money up front. Myo Win says this was in his thoughts as he entered the operating theatre: “I made up my mind that I had to do it because I had already taken their money.”

He adds that he “chose this desperate way” as he was struggling with debt and medical bills for his wife.