Poverty stricken Tsumani victims selling kidneys in Tamil Nadu

from The Daily India

In a shocking revelation, Tamil Nadu police has unearthed an ongoing Kidney racket that involves several fishermen who sold their kidneys to raise money to survive after being left homeless during Tsunami in December, 2004.

The fishermen belong to Tsunami Nagar and have admitted to police that the main reason for their getting drawn to sell their kidneys was extreme poverty.

About 100 people, mostly women, are reported to have sold their kidneys for Rupees 40,000-60,000 (900 to 1,350 dollars).

"I couldn't bring up my children and I sold my kidney only because of my poverty. I couldn't pay my house rent. So for all these expenses, when a broker contacted me, I sold my kidney. With that money, I cleared all my debts. But this happened three years ago," said Bhubaneshwari, who claims to have got her surgery done before tsunami struck.

Some of the 1,800 families near the city of Chennai say fishing became impossible after their seaside village was washed away and they were moved about 12 kilometre (seven miles) inland to Eranavoor, where Tsunami Nagar is situated.

"Kidney sales have not occurred overnight, they have been going on since 1995. In our Kargil Nagar before Tsunami, it was only one or two people in a year who sold their kidneys but after Tsunami, two or three people stated visiting the hospital in a week. Knowing this, we organised an investigation committee recently, which revealed that our people were selling kidneys due tooverty," said Maria Selvam, President of a local fishermen's association.

According to Paul Sunder Singh, Director of a voluntary organisation, many local hospitals are involved in the trade.

" After Tsunami, in the temporary shelters, we have confirmed that more than 25 people have sold their kidneys. This is because of their financial burden and problem. It has been prevailing for a long time and it has increased because of their hardened life situation and also because of the brokers luring them for a lump sum amount of 1, 50,000, but at last they pay only 30,000 to 40,000 only. Some of them threaten the victims for this purpose," he said.

Many women refuted their previous admission about selling kidneys after learning that authorities would investigate the incident.

Over 7,000 people were killed when giant waves smashed into the coast of Tamil Nadu.

While India was initially praised for its response to the disaster, many non-government groups have criticised the government for not providing adequate housing to tens of thousands of people who survived but left to live as homeless and destitute. (ANI)