Pinoy children sell own kidneys to make ends meet

MANILA, Philippines - Some Filipino children have turned to selling their own kidneys even as more youths joined the illegal sex trade to earn a living, a non-government organization said yesterday.

According to a study conducted by the End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking in Metro Manila and Quezon province, “we were able to identify 250 people who sold their kidneys and of the number, two were below 18 years,” ECPAT’s Amihan Abueva said.

She said the two children told ECPAT someone recruited them and they were paid P112,000 each for their kidneys.

Selling kidneys is the newest form of child exploitation in the country, Abueva said.

She also said while ECPAT has no data to prove the increasing number of child sex workers, “we can say it’s worsening because even construction workers (hire) the services of young children.”

According to ECPAT, the “flesh trade among children is not only done in the confines of hotels but construction workers just rent a carton (box). In fact, there is now a system of renting those carton boxes.”

Abueva said what their studies show is that the number of boys engaged in the sex trade and pornography, particularly in the Visayas, is increasing.

“The areas, the age and even the gender of those engaged in child sex trade in the country is getting wider so I think the situation is really getting worse due to poverty and other factors,” she said.

Earlier, government medical experts reported that syndicates are now using online marketing and offering organs to prospective foreign and local buyers through the Internet.

Dr. Benita Padilla of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute said online organ selling has become rampant in the country despite the ban on organ trafficking.

According to Padilla, organ trafficking is a common problem in the Philippines and other countries where poor people are forced to sell their organs.

She said the worldwide shortage of available organs for transplantation has encouraged commercial trafficking in human organs, particularly among living unrelated donors.