China: Teenager 'sells kidney for iPad'

[Loki]

China: Teenager 'sells kidney for iPad' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13639934)

A teenager in China has sold one of his kidneys in order to buy an iPad 2, Chinese media report.

The 17-year-old, identified only as Little Zheng, told a local TV station he had arranged the sale of the kidney over the internet.

The story only came to light after the teenager's mother became suspicious.

The case highlights China's black market in organ trafficking. A scarcity of organ donors has led to a flourishing trade.

Deep red scar

It all started when the high school student saw an online advert offering money to organ donors.

Illegal agents organised a trip to the hospital and paid him $3,392 (£2,077) after the operation.

With the cash the student bought an iPad 2, as well as a laptop.

When his mother noticed the computers and the deep red scar on his body, which was caused by the surgery, Little Zheng confessed.

In 2007, Chinese authorities banned organ trafficking and have introduced a voluntary donor scheme to try to combat the trade.

[Wanderlust]

It's totally shocking.
Those morbid ''agents'' should be executed.And what kind of advert was that?Jesus Christ.

[Aces High]

I cant see anything wrong with it myself.If he is mentaly stable and an adult he can do what he wants with his body...its his after all.There are all sorts of body modifications going on these days where nobody bats an eyelid.

Anyway it beats getting knocked over the head by a load of Albanians and waking up naked in a telephone box two weeks laters "sans" kidney.

[Bridie]

I don't find it surprising at all. East Asians are known for valuing material goods above human life, let alone mere human health. There's a reason why selling one's own children for a few bucks into child prostitution is such a common occurrence over there.

[Loki]

East Asians are known for valuing material goods above human life, let alone mere human health.

So are Europeans. Hence our countries having to have watchdog institutions. Otherwise company profit would be more important than human life to the fat cats. It really is so.

[Bridie]

So are Eastern Europeans. Hence our countries having to have watchdog institutions. Otherwise company profit would be more important than human life to the fat cats. It really is so.Fixed. ;)

[Loki]

Fixed. ;)

No, no ... I am mainly thinking Western, extremely capitalist-minded Western Europeans and their descendants in the New World. Here in England, it is dog-eat-dog. If it was legal to kill people, many would be dead every day.

[Agrippa]

I don't find it surprising at all. East Asians are known for valuing material goods above human life, let alone mere human health. There's a reason why selling one's own children for a few bucks into child prostitution is such a common occurrence over there.

This was always more common among the infantile South East Asians though, because I read about Chinese travellers mentioning the child prostitution in South East Asia, especially of little boys too, which was not that common in China itself.

So there are "more regional traditions" among Asians and racial as well as cultural differences too.

[Blossom]

Where's Marx? :lol:

[Bridie]

No, no ... I am mainly thinking Western, extremely capitalist-minded Western Europeans and their descendants in the New World. Here in England, it is dog-eat-dog. If it was legal to kill people, many would be dead every day.Well, you should think again, matey. Its not from their own doorstep that thousands upon thousands of pimps and prostitutes are flooding Western Europe. Its from Eastern Europe. There's a reason for that and its the same reason that people will sell their own children for a bit of cash or remove an organ for an iPad.



This was always more common among the infantile South East Asians though, because I read about Chinese travellers mentioning the child prostitution in South East Asia, especially of little boys too, which was not that common in China itself.

So there are "more regional traditions" among Asians and racial as well as cultural differences too. It's certainly more common in SE Asia, I concur. Hard to know who always responsible though. There are HUGE ethnic Chinese populations in the SE.

[Loki]

Well, you should think again, matey. Its not from their own doorstep that thousands upon thousands of pimps and prostitutes are flooding Western Europe. Its Eastern Europe. There's a reason for that and its the same reason that people will sell their own children for a bit of cash or remove an organ for an iPad.


That's only because they're more poor and desperate. I guarantee you some English would do the same, and they actually do.

Over here it's all about profit. There is actually a new report (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13616543) which puts a £ value on nature and wildlife in the UK, so as to bring forth an argument not to destroy it (!). Hence, if no profit could have been made from nature, it would probably all go eventually to our individual greeds. Thankfully not all people think like that, but many do.

[Bridie]

That's only because they're more poor and desperate.What a pathetic excuse. "Oh, I was poor and desperate so I had no other choice but to organise an international prostitute trafficking operation...." WTF???? Or "I was poor and desperate so I didn't want to pick fruit for a living (too much hard work, not as much pay), instead choosing to spread my legs to anyone who has enough money to pay me". Bloody hell. If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

[Loki]

What a pathetic excuse. "Oh, I was poor and desperate so I had no other choice but to organise an international prostitute trafficking operation...." WTF???? Or "I was poor and desperate so I didn't want to pick fruit for a living (too much hard work, not as much pay), instead choosing to spread my legs to anyone who has enough money to pay me". Bloody hell. If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

I live in this country, you don't. I know that local people around here are like that as well. They have no conscience.

[Aces High]

What a pathetic excuse. "Oh, I was poor and desperate so I had no other choice but to organise an international prostitute trafficking operation...." WTF????

It doesnt work like that,its not like a career move.Its more of a case of these people dont have many options available to them so through a process of elimination fall into certain fields of expertise....drug smuggling,prostitution,organ trafficking etc.

[Agrippa]

It's certainly more common in SE Asia, I concur. Hard to know who always responsible though. There are HUGE ethnic Chinese populations in the SE.

Yeah, but the tolerance for such activities is culturally much higher in SEA.


What a pathetic excuse. "Oh, I was poor and desperate so I had no other choice but to organise an international prostitute trafficking operation...." WTF???? Or "I was poor and desperate so I didn't want to pick fruit for a living (too much hard work, not as much pay), instead choosing to spread my legs to anyone who has enough money to pay me". Bloody hell. If you believe that, you'll believe anything.

Well, while I agree with you largely, I might add that one cannot completely feel the same if being raised and having lived completely differently. The utter desperation of real and hardest poverty is something completely different, especially if being never taught and never have seen a real perspective.

Also, for the case mentioned, I have to add that people often kill others for 100 bucks or even less, many just have no consciousness at all.

If comparing that with a situation in which you might die in a rather unpleasant way or being dependent from a regular dialysis - or both - this is definitely a much greater and more reasonable cause for acting illegal and not caring too much about others.

Organ donor is just something very specific, because there are people with a great desperation behind it, since obviously, nobody wants a foreign organ with all the risks and problems of a transplantation without a good reason. It is a life-health or disease-death question.

That is, for oneself or loved ones, for sure one of the most fundamental and greatest questions you can imagine.

So there will be always an illegal way, if the legal is not sufficient and I can even understand that, without accepting or tolerating certain actions of course, because they are against the interests of the group and finally most indivduals.

I want a free health care for all on a high level and organ donor being the duty of everyone - if being dead of course ;)
Which means I would be ready to donate my organs if being dead and I expect the same from every reasonable human being.

If you are not ready for that, you will be last in the list if needing one yourself and of course, you have to make clear you don't want it, the default process is that your organs will be used if you are dead and they are usable.

With a good health care and donation system, the illegal market can be put under hardest punishments and will have a much lower acceptance, even among the needy, as well, since there is a legal way out for most anyway.

[Bridie]

I live in this country, you don't. I know that local people around here are like that as well. They have no conscience.I'm sure there is plenty of scum in England, Loki. Especially living in certain areas (but then, many of them probably not even ethnic English). (We're lucky in Australia that the English who emigrate to here are by and large very decent people.) But if you look at statistics I'm sure you'd find that there are proportionately more pimps and prostitutes coming from countries like Romania and more cases of parents selling their children for money in countries like Thailand than you'll ever find in any Western European country. Its not all about the wealth of a nation and standard of living, its also about what is considered to be acceptable, or even an option, in a culture. Just look at India, a country with an appallingly high degree of poverty and filth... yet are they known for prostitution or selling their children? No.



It doesnt work like that,its not like a career move.Its more of a case of these people dont have many options available to them so through a process of elimination fall into certain fields of expertise....drug smuggling,prostitution,organ trafficking etc.Our decisions are a reflection of our values and principles... or lack thereof.

[Peasant]

Of all the things you could trade your kidney for he got a fucking iPad?

[Agrippa]

Again I can agree, since different people have just different cultures, niveaus, reasoning etc. too.

However, I might add, since you mentioned Australia, that many of the criminals from 18th and 19th century England were pretty decent people from a genetic point of view, but neglected, shabby, socially exploited and desperate, in an unhealthy, often unfair and totally rigid Capitalist system.

So they could really show their potential, or lack of it, in Australia, whereas they couldn't as good in England, in this degenerated industrialised social environment with all its lack of chances and equality.

In many of these individual cases, you can see the true potential just if putting the variant in a different environment, probably just after generations. You can measure the potential before in a way, with modern methods now, but the phenotype might be spoiled already...

This is a crucial difference between Liberal and Collective Eugenic too, with me promoting the latter of course.

Because the Liberal way is to not look too much for the potential of an individual and the potential other factors causing its troubles, while the collective way is fair and really wants to bring forward the individuals, individual bloodlines and group as a whole, so the collective approach is not asocial, not only based on materialistic-Capitalist evaluations and looks for the environmental-milieu aspects too (Euphenic).

F.e. some of the criminals being deported to Australia were just "minus-variants" by default, they were a problem in Britain, and even under much better or very different conditions, even after some generations, such bloodlines will just produce negative variants, because their genetic and probably also deep rooted memetic heritage is completely spoiled.

In other cases, the change of environment, the new options made it possible for good variants, which were forced to act criminal one could say, to show their full potential.

Australia was therefore a really great experiment in certain respects, as one could study bloodlines of people which were unable to cope with the (often degenerated) system at home, but could flourish in a better environment for them - while others couldn't - or some might even have been respectable people in the very constricted environment of bourgeois England, but became asocial and highly destructive criminals abroad, when getting the chance to...

To give a concrete example from Europe, a classic social problem case, also for child prostitution and essentially all kinds of (rather low level) crimes the Gypsies (Roma) can be mentioned.

Now there are huge differences even among the Roma people, but on average and many of their bloodlines are completely spoiled sociocultually-memetically AND genetically. So even if using Euphenic means, they could at best be just lowest level for European standards, they would never rise, as a group, to the niveau of European people, because they lack the genetic potential.

For many of Eastern and South Eastern Asia, the same can't be said, because most studies and experiences show, that they have a rather higher genetic potential for social and cultural development, at least on average and especially if talking about East Asians (Sinoid).

But still, one has always to keep in mind the different influences from the genetic and cultural legacy.

[Bridie]

F.e. some of the criminals being deported to Australia were just "minus-variants" by default, they were a problem in Britain, and even under much better or very different conditions, even after some generations, such bloodlines will just produce negative variants, because their genetic and probably also deep rooted memetic heritage is completely spoiled.

In other cases, the change of environment, the new options made it possible for good variants, which were forced to act criminal one could say, to show their full potential.

Australia was therefore a really great experiment in certain respects, as one could study bloodlines of people which were unable to cope with the (often degenerated) system at home, but could flourish in a better environment for them - while others couldn't - or some might even have been respectable people in the very constricted environment of bourgeois England, but became asocial and highly destructive criminals abroad, when getting the chance to...I see what you're saying and I even agree to an extent (about people being able to show their true potential when in more favourable socio-political environments) but it doesn't add up if talking about the boy who sold his kidney for an iPad (the level of poverty in China is rather low, especially if speaking of urban areas) or a Romanian woman who immigrates to a Western European country having the opportunity to seek honourable work (like waitressing or fruit picking) but choosing to prostitute herself just because it pays better. (This, by all accounts, is a very common scenario.)


Interesting thing about convicts being sent to the New World as free labour in the establishment of colonies though... it was actually common throughout all of the New World initially (Portuguese, Spanish, British, French...)...


THE employment of convicts in the formation of new colonies, a practice which probably originated in the ancient custom of employing slave labour on public works, was a common one among the colonising nations of Europe from the earliest times. By two edicts issued in 1497, the Spanish Government authorised judicial transportation of criminals to the West Indies, and gave certain criminals the option of transporting themselves to Hispaniola (St. Domingo) at their own expense, to serve for a specified time under Columbus. The first Europeans who landed on the coast of Brazil were two convicts, who were left ashore by the Portuguese in 1500 (1). The commission given by the King of France in 1540 to Jacques Cartier, or Quartier, as Captain-General on his second voyage to Canada, authorised him to choose fifty persons out of such criminals in prison as should have been convicted of any crimes whatever, excepting treason and counterfeiting money, whom he should think fit and capable to serve in the expedition. Another French expedition to Canada, which set sail in 1598 under the command of the Marquis de la Roche, carried forty convicts who were left on the Isle of Sables, about fifty leagues to the south-east of Cape Breton, for the purpose of forming a settlement there. In the same manner, Sir Martin Frobisher was supplied, by the Queen's order, with certain "prisoners and condemned men" when he sailed in 1577 on his second voyage "for the discoverie of a new passage to Cataya, China, and the East India, by the North-west," and also for the discovery of "golde mynes" among the icebergs. His instructions directed him to "sett on land upon the coast of Friesland vi of the condemned persons which you carie with you, with weapons and vittualls such as you may conveniently spare, to which persons you shall give instructions howe they may by their good behaviour wyn the goodwill of the people of that country, and also learn the state of the same (2)." And lastly, the colonists sent out to North America by the Government of Sweden in 1638, when Fort Christina in Delaware was founded, were comprised largely from the prisons of Sweden and Finland.

It was natural that this system, once introduced, should be utilised for other purposes than that of laying the foundations of new settlements. The difficulty of obtaining free settlers for the work operated long after that stage in the history of a colony had been passed; and as the demand for labour in the colnies far exceeded the supply, the employment of prisoners became a matter of practical necessity as well as one of State policy.

This difficulty was aggravated by another influence which operated largely in the same direction. Down to a comparatively recent period, the various States of Europe, so far from suffering from redundant populations, were harassed with the fear of losing that portion of them which formed the main reservoirs of their military strength. One result of this apprehension was a settled aversion to the emigration of able-bodied men to new countries, on the ground that it tended to depopulate the parent State. The "depopulation" theory became a potent factor, especially in England, in checking the tendency to emigration to the colonies, and continued to be so until the evils of a surplus population had grown into a great national question (3).

A third cause was at work throughout the same period and in the same direction; and that was the necessity for finding some effectual means for disposing of the convicted criminals who were always accumulating in the small, ill-constructed, and unwholesome gaols of former times. Transportation under such circumstances naturally became a favourite theory of penal discipline among reformers and philanthropists, the arguments in its favour being mainly these:- 1, It freed the country from large numbers of the criminal classes, as well as from the dangers attending over-crowded gaols; 2, It was calculated to promote the prosperity of the colonies; 3, It offered a better prospect of reformation to the convicts who were sent abroad than could possibly be afforded them in the gaols; and 4, It served to mitigate the severity of the old criminal laws, which prescribed the penalty of death for many offences now punished with a few months' imprisonment. For these reasons the system held its ground firmly for fully three centuries.

Its commencement may be dated from the fifteenth century, and so far as England is concerned, it may be said to have terminated in 1867. The Portuguese, who are credited with having been "the first European nation to employ transportation and penal labour in the colonies as a mode of punishment (4)," made large use of their Brazilian and other possessions for the reception of convicts. If they were the first to introduce this system for penal purposes, England was "the first country which systematically used her dependencies as places for the reception and punishment of convicts (5)." The transportation of convicts from England to the North American colonies began in the reign of James I, was largely resorted to in the time of Charles II, and early in the eighteenth century was reduced to a regular system. One reason why it came so largely into use was because "it was found that the Government might save the expense of maintaining convicts be selling them as slaves for a term of years or for life, to a Virginia or Maryland planter (6)." The Government, of course, did not sell the convicts directly, but it empowered the shipowners who contracted for their transportation to sell them, by giving the former a statutory right of property in their service (7). The Government transferred them to the contractors, who in turn transferred them to the planters - the Government in that way relieving itself of all cost and responsibility. But although the system of contract was continued for some years when convicts were sent out to Australia, they ceased to be made the subject of actual sale. A different method of dealing with them was adopted; the Government retained its control over them from first to last, paid for their transportation at a fixed rate, and afterwards (8) permitted their assignment to colonists on certain terms.

Source : http://www.freewebz.com/matthewshistory/library/barton_transportation1.html



But it should be kept in mind too that the governments of the day were selective about the convicts they would choose to send to help establish and support their colonies abroad. Mostly criminals convicted of petty, non-violent crimes were pardoned from their death sentence and sent off to the New World. I've read lists of the crimes that Australian convicts were convicted of and for the most part they were crimes such as "being in possession of an illegal book", "stealing one sheep" etc.

And here too...



Starting in the early seventeenth century, Britain also started an organized system of convict transportation, which sent convicted felons to America as punishment for crime. In 1717 Parliament passed an act empowering courts to sentence noncapital offenders directly to transportation for seven years. Anyone who returned before his or her term expired or who helped a convict to escape was liable to be hanged. In addition, by 1723, more than fifty crimes in Britain were punishable, at least in statute, by the death penalty. Some of these offenses included poaching fish, damaging trees, or stealing a silver spoon. Yet many of those convicted of these capital crimes were allowed to escape the noose by agreeing to voluntary exile. As a result, the overwhelming number of those condemned to death were pardoned and shipped to America, where they were sold as servants for fourteen years. Between 1717 and 1775, Britain alone transported more than fifty thousand convicts to America. France also utilized transportation to its colonies throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Read more: Prisons: History - The Rise Of The Prisoner Trade - Convicts, Servants, Slaves, America, Colonies, and Britain http://law.jrank.org/pages/1771/Prisons-History-rise-prisoner-trade.html#ixzz1OJO2PUvW

It didn't make sense for the governments of the day to send dangerous, unpredictable or violent criminals. For the most part, the intention was that the convicts would serve out their sentence and then go on to be productive pioneers in the newly established colonies.

[Agrippa]

Indeed, yet in many of those cases it was in fact "cheap labour force and limited slavery" rather than a new chance, but there were different scenarios for the convicts during that time of their personal servitude, as well as afterwards and if being not a practical bond slave.

However, as you can see in these cases, many of the "criminals" might have been desperately poor, rebellious or even part of an opposition, in any case not necessarily "born criminals" of the typical kind.

Otherwise little to add, it seems we largely agree on this one, including the issue with prostitution, though I have to add one thing about that as well, namely that some prostitutes being in practical servitude and debt as well, because if the facilitators, gangs, pimps or whatever betrayed them or brought them in a deep debt and dependence, probably taking papers, blackmailing them etc. So even in the case of prostitution, there are different thinkable scenarios.

[ikki]

well, im soon in need of a kidney.. so i wont be complaining one last bit. infact, id pay that $1000 too ;)