CULTURE-SERBIA: Selling Kidneys Means Survival For Some Serbs

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, Jan 15 2002 (IPS) - For weeks now, a local paper in the northern Serbian town of Novi Sad has been carrying an advertisement in the classified column under the title “Children that need to be taken care of”.

The advertisement offers the healthy kidneys of a 38 year old woman and her 41 year old husband for sale with the explanation that the meagre income of the two does not meet the basic needs of their family.

“It is high time we took care about the future of our sons, elementary and high school students. Selling of our organs will help us do that,” says the advertisement.

In the capital of Belgrade, the most popular daily “Blic” refused to print similar offers by two men living in the outskirts, saying that offering organs for sale is illegal.

But the two agreed to speak to reporters, on condition of anonymity, saying that they would go on offering their kidneys for sale, as that would mean salvation for them and their families.

“I tried everything” says N.N. (34), father of a 16 month old girl. “I worked as an auto mechanic, taxi driver, apprentice cook and sold smuggled goods at markets… Nothing worked out… For most of the days my family and me remained hungry… I have no more time for imagining my better future,” he adds bitterly.

N.N.’s story is typical for thousands of ordinary Serbs who played the survival game under the abnormal circumstances in the 90s, when the wars and total isolation of the country under Slobodan Milosevic led to the unprecedented poverty.

The change of the regime in October 2000 meant little for many of them, as the economic recovery of Serbia still looks far away.

N.N. refuses to say how he learned about the possibility of selling a kidney, but seems to be aware of its price.

“I’d be satisfied with 200,000 German Marks (roughly 100,000 United States dollars),” N.N. says. “When I tried to put the ad in Blic, they asked me if I was crazy. I’m not. This is the only way out for me.”

In the country of seven million, official statistics say that only 1,7 million are employed. Unemployment has reached almost 40 percent. Another 300,000 to 500,000 people are to lose their jobs in 2002 due to the total collapse of the economy.

For M.N. (39) from Ub, a small town close to Belgrade, “it’s better to sell a kidney than to commit suicide.”

His grocery business collapsed in 1999, at the time of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, NATO, air raids against Serbia. Due to the destruction of the power distribution system, Ub was left without electricity for days.

“Everything in the fridges simply rot… This led to my first 3,000 dollars debt. The debts accumulated later on and here I am – penniless,” M.N adds.

Like N.N., he is aware that trade in organs is illegal, but “selling a kidney would mean survival”.

“The idea illustrates the level of poverty among many Serbs now,” says Belgrade University professor Zarko Trebjesanin. “In the 90s, the material destruction led to the destruction of human substance… The idea of selling something that, by definition, is not for sale, marks the bottom line of the destruction of one society.”

For years now, it is a public secret that Serbia has become the crossroad of illegal trade in organs, mostly livers and kidneys.

They come from neighbouring Bosnia or southern Serbian province of Kosovo and go to the Western countries. It is hard to establish how much an organ costs, but couriers are paid up to 2,000 dollars for a quick transfer to the country of destination.

Both police and health officials in Serbia are tight lipped on the matter.

It is impossible to obtain any comment or reaction about the trade in human organs, except for the usual sentence that “it is illegal”. Some officials admit that they became familiar with the problem “only recently, through media.”

In the meantime, Belgrade is buzzing with a rumour that an anonymous Serb, through Internet bidding, sold his kidney for a fantastic sum of 1,5 million dollars.

For the time being, it is impossible to establish if this is an urban myth or simple truth.