Government officials behind record rise in Moldova organ trade

Every 6 minutes, a human organ is being removed from a Moldovan and sold. Government officials reap enormous profits.

CHISINAU (Tiraspol Times) - Mass human organs sale in Moldova is taking place with official involvement, the German news agency DPA informs. There are villages in the Southern region of Moldova where almost all the inhabitants sold organs in order to escape the extreme poverty they live in. The "commerce" goes on with the agreement of the Chisinau authorities, DPA reports.

The Moldovan officials either "shut their eyes" to organ, drugs and human trafficking or are part of these crimes, which became "usual" in Moldova, reports the influential wire service.

" - The illegal organ trafficking became so common that authorities ignore it or even participate in it", DPA reads.

Tiraspol Times confirms that organ trafficking is so common that authorities turn a blind eye to it, and sometimes participate in the lucrative trade. In the south of Moldova, entire villages exist where every single inhabitant has been "under the knife" as part of the illegal organ trade. Some die in the process. But in Menzhi, Cagule and Chimishlii, the local leaders defended the trade by saying: Either we sell our organs or we starve.

Although it used to be one of the wealthier parts of the former Soviet Union, Moldova is today a basket case and officially the poorest country in Europe. With nearly total unemployment, the registered daily income of 80% of the population is below a dollar per day. This fact can explain why desperate people sell their organs for money and sex trafficking is rampant. Moldovan prostitutes are now the country’s main export.

" - Forget about letting my country ever become part of Moldova," says Tiraspol-born Tatiana Pantic, 17. "It will not happen. I don't know anyone here who has a wish to be part of Moldova. We already have our own independent country, and it is called Pridnestrovie. If the world recognizes that or not, it is the world's problem. But join Moldova? Never."

Young: Nine out of ten can't wait to leave

Moldova wants to rule Pridnestrovie, but can not even rule its own citizens. It holds the dubious record of being the top emigration country in Europe: On a per capita basis, more people are leaving Moldova than anywhere else, and faster than anywhere else.

According to a UNICEF survey, “90% of Moldovans aged between 18-29 would like to leave the country …only 9% said they would like to live in Moldova.” Freedom House says: "Some 800,000 inhabitants of Moldova have left the country to pursue a better life elsewhere, and the majority of the country's remaining population lives in poverty."

Moldova lacks basic infrastructure such as paved roads in large areas of the country. Subsistence farming and the barter of basic staples has become the means of survival for a large share of the people remaining in Moldova, and the human organ trade is flourishing here like nowhere else in the world.

" - This is not the kind of country we want to be part of," says Tiraspol resident Oleg Atroshchyk, confirming that he supports Pridnestrovie's existence as a separate, sovereign state which is fully independent of "the disastrous statehood experiment that is known as the Republic of Moldova."

Most of Moldova’s impoverished population tend to associate their woes with the failed policies of Romanization. The only thing Romania offers which has any appeal is its citizenship - usually bought with bribes from its embassy in Chisinau - and a passport which means the possibility of escape to the West.

As Moldovans are selling their organs to scrape enough money together for a ticket out of Moldova, few people on the other side of the Dniester are eager to join. Pridnestrovie, which is also known as Transnistria among other names, declared independence in 1990. Its independence has not been recognized by Moldova who tried an unsuccessful invasion in 1992 in a last-gasp attempt to establish its territorial claim. Locals consider Moldova's claim baseless, since the territory which todays forms Pridnestrovie has never been part of a Moldovan or Romanian state at any time in history.

Pridnestrovie has a different historical past than Moldova, and different ethnic proportions. Moldova, predominantly ethnic Romanian, is a traditional part of Romania and speaks a language virtually indistinguishable from Romanian. Pridnestrovie, overwhelmingly Slav, has never been part of Romania and most people speak Russian. Unlike Moldova, Pridnestrovie was part of the Kievan Rus legacy more than a thousand years ago, the proto-Russian state. It was a formal part of Russia since the 1700's. (With information from DPA)

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