Poverty Has Pushed Some Afghans To Sell Kidney’s To Buy Food
In a settlement near the town of Herat in northwestern Afghanistan, so many residents have sold their kidneys that it has become known as “One kidney village.”
Six months after the takeover by the Taliban, the country’s economy has been devastated. More than 24 million people — 59 per cent of the population — are at risk of famine, 30 percentage points more than in 2021, according to the United Nations, and 500,000 Afghans have lost their jobs.
This poverty has pushed many to sell their organs to buy food, pay debts — and, in one case, to prevent the sale of a child.
Aziza, a 20-year-old mother of three in Shenshayba Bazaar village, said she has been waiting for a broker to find a buyer for her kidney for some time and that if she is unable to locate one, she might have to sell her one-year-old daughter.
“My children roam on the streets begging,” she told AFP. “If I don’t sell my kidney, I will be forced to sell my one-year-old daughter.”
On top of selling organs, in recent months, reports have surfaced of parents offering daughters into marriage or to childless couples for money because they can no longer afford to feed the girls.
Nooruddin is a 32-year-old father who also has no alternative because he is one of the unemployed in Herat, which has a population of 575,000.
“I didn’t want to, but I didn’t have any option. I did it for my children,” he says as he shows the long diagonal scar from the surgery on the left side of his abdomen.
