Young Kenyans are selling their kidneys for motor bikes, let's sell hearts for a little more

The Kenya Kwanza policy of using poverty as a tool of governance—which is why the focus has been on taxing Kenyans to death, and stealing the cash—has been hugely successful. But reports of our young citizens selling their body parts to elderly Europeans and other nationalities hit a new, deep chord of desperation.

Understandably, government agencies that could have stopped these crimes looked the other way as the youths, some as young as 22, were wheeled into a facility in Eldoret to have their kidneys cut off for as little as Sh300,000.

Most said they had been promised much more, but where would one pursue claims based on such illegalities? Many recognised they were doomed and just walked away to nurse their wounds.

I think the government should provide a proper framework for organ sale. I mean, the idea of willing buyer, willing seller is our foundational ethos. Justice is for sale, so are politicians, teacher, doctors, name it. As long as the price is right, Kenyans will sell just about anything, including their body parts.

Once kidneys are done, we could move on to ears and eyes. We have two, and one is good enough. Ditto hands and legs. Hearts could fetch even more.

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Since the government’s official policy has been to encourage labour export—which has its foundation in slave trade—I think the new venture should be marketed as “value addition.” This way, the government could even consider the creation of an “export processing zone” that strictly deals in selling body parts. This would rake in the much needed taxes on organ sales, and it could be used to leverage health tourism.

Over and above these benefits, legalising organ sale offers multiple opportunities for the health sector to develop bed capacity for organ transplants, stimulating the real-estate and hospitality sectors, while mopping up the highly qualified but unemployed cadres of medical workers.

This is what we call a win-win situation: the government reaps big from the citizens through taxes, the young men get boda bodas and create employment for themselves and elderly foreigners receive a new lease of long life. Who needs healthy kidneys, anyway, when our life is short and brutish?