2017/05/10 by Seán Columb · 14 citations
Medicine · Social Sciences · #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography #Context (archaeology) #Criminalization #Criminology #Economics #Formality #Law #Legislature #Organ Donation and Transplantation #Political economy #Political science #Sanctions #Sex work and related issues #Sociology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/lasr.12269
published in Law & Society Review 51(2), 282-312 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2017/05/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Legislative and policy interventions in response to the organ trade have centered on the introduction of criminal sanctions in an effort to deter organ sales and/or “trafficking.” Yet, such measures fail to take account of the social and political processes that facilitate the exploitation of individuals in organ markets in different contexts. Informed by empirical data, gathered via a series of in-depth interviews with Sudanese migrants who have sold a kidney, this paper examines the link between increased urbanization, migration patterns, informalization, and the emergence of organ markets in the Egyptian-Sudanese context. The findings illustrate how processes of legal marginalization and social exclusion leave people vulnerable to exploitation in organ markets. The prevailing law enforcement response does not capture or respond to the empirical reality. Accordingly, this paper shifts the emphasis away from criminalization toward an analysis of the legal barriers and policy decisions that shape the poor bargaining position of organ sellers. In doing so, it opens up discussion of the organ trade onto wider critiques that disrupt boundaries between formality and informality in labor markets and trouble dominant modes of criminalization.