As global job losses mount due to the COVID-19 pandemic, desperate people are seeking new ways to make money via social media, and evidence points to a resulting deadly surge in illicit organ trafficking.

In April, Shivkumar (whose name has been changed to protect his identity) took out a loan for a power loom, confident in joining the local saree production industry.

And then the pandemic hit.

“I have no choice but to commit suicide if I do not [sell] my kidney to pay the debts,” says the 32-year-old from the Southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

Shivkumar hasn’t worked in six months, and the deadline for his loan of 1,600,000 rupees (US$21,700) has already passed. He also needs funds urgently to support his wife and three-year-old son.

Like millions of other workers this year, Shivkumar has been left without a steady income because of the pandemic. But his case is also emblematic of something more sinister, as restrictions to halt the spread of the virus destroy people’s livelihoods and organs become a prized currency on the ‘red market’.

“The conditions are becoming more ripe for trafficking,” says Aimée Comrie, project coordinator at the GLO.ACT anti-trafficking initiative at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Far fewer transplants have been performed over the past six months globally as hospitals closed or diverted resources to treating COVID-19, creating a significant backlog of patients on waiting lists.

Read the full article about organ trafficking during the pandemic by Victor Jack at SciDev.Net.