Victims or complicit traffickers? examining the status of victims of organ trafficking in Nigeria

Abstract

Organ trafficking is one of the fast-booming offences with transnational dimensions. Often, organ trafficking is linked with human trafficking and punished along the same lines as the crime of trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal. Traffickers are often punished as the offenders while subjects of the harvested and trafficked organs are regarded as victims who are protected by the law rather than punished. However, with regard to the crime of organ trafficking, it is difficult to conceive some so-called victims of organ trafficking as victims without the tainted lens of complicity in the offence. With respect to victims, organ trafficking is largely touted as an offence driven by poverty and economic difficulty as against greed and sheer criminal tendencies. International legal provisions on organ trafficking do not exactly conceptualise a victim in the context of plain organ trafficking, state parties may exercise their discretion within their domestic legal context. This paper examines the subject of victims and the offence of organ trafficking in Nigeria. This paper adopts a purely doctrinal approach in examining the status of victims in organ trafficking. It makes use of data from primary sources from both domestic and international laws and secondary sources of data on organ trafficking in assessing the status of victims of organ trafficking. The paper argues that the recent cases of organ trafficking reveal that many victims are consenting perpetrators and drivers of organ trafficking rather than being innocent, vulnerable and exploited victims. The law ought not to shield those against whom it must wield its sword of correction and punishment. Hence, the status of victims in cases of organ trafficking should be reviewed differently from victims of trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ removal.