'I am suffering deep down': Myanmar's poor travel to India to sell their organs

Under threat of starvation, people experiencing poverty in Myanmar traveled to India to sell their organs, according to a CNN investigation published on Friday. 

Investigators spoke to Maung Maung in 2022, who decided to sell his kidneys after witnessing his wife and daughter go without food for three days.

The family had entered into debt after Maung was arrested and tortured by the country’s militia junta. Held for weeks on suspicion of transporting resources for the opposition forces, Maung’s wife was forced to take out loans in his absence.

In severe debt, Maung told CNN that he decided to sell his kidney.

“In that moment, I felt life was so harsh. There is no other way I could survive other than to rob or kill people for money,” he said. “My wife was the same; she didn’t want to stay in this world anymore. But only for the sake of our daughter, we stayed.”

In July 2023, Maung found a buyer and traveled to India for surgery. A Chinese-Burmese businessman had purchased his kidney for 10 million Burmese kyat ($3,079 or approx. NIS 17,800). 

While the amount Maung received was equivalent to nearly twice the annual average urban household income in Myanmar, according to 2019 data from the UN-affiliated Myanmar Information Management Unit, it is significantly less than it is valued on the global black market. According to a research paper from 2021, held by the Parliament of Canada, a black market kidney can range in price from $50,000-$120,000

Maung is not the only Myanmar citizen to decide to sell his organs, the investigation found. Many civilians sell their organs to wealthy foreigners using Facebook as a means to find buyers, sometimes with the help of agents who take a fee for their service. 

While organ selling is illegal in both India and Myanmar, CNN said it discovered three Burmese-language Facebook accounts dedicated to organ trafficking and spoke to 24 people involved in the black market industry.

Meta told CNN that it removed one of the groups but refused to comment further. The platform’s community guidelines do not allow organ trafficking.

In India, organ donation is only allowed among relatives, with few exceptions. However, agents forge documents to enable the operations to go ahead. 

In an attempt to circumvent the black market trade, Myanmar’s embassy in New Delhi has a committee review submitted documents. 

According to the National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organization, nearly 10,000 kidney transplants involving live donors were carried out across India in 2022.

“To sell a part of your body is a difficult decision for everyone. Nobody wants to do it,” an anonymous 26-year-old woman told CNN shortly after advertising her kidney on Facebook in February. “The only reason I am doing this is because I have no choice.”

The woman had dreamed of becoming a nurse but was forced to work in a garment factory for a monthly salary of $100 to support her family.

“I am trying my best to survive amid such a challenging situation. There were days I cried. There were days I didn’t have anything to eat when my friends could not help me,” she told CNN.

“I want to donate my kidney. My blood type is O. I need money for my aunt who has cancer and needs an operation. I’m 26 years old, and I don’t drink. DM me,” she wrote in a group, looking for a buyer.

CNN spoke to an anonymous organ buyer, too. A widowed woman married her organ ‘donor’ to get around the legislation preventing non-familial organ donation. For a price of  12 million kyat ($3,695), she secured a kidney after being told she would die before she could obtain a kidney legally.

The widow said that she and her new husband had to revise their stories for weeks leading up to the surgery.

“It’s an interrogation to confirm whether we are a real couple. But the thing is, they know that we are lying,” she said. “The law, by definition, is strict, as are the hospital’s rules. However, they allow us to get the treatment by ignoring the red flags and forged documents.”

Nine of the ten donors and buyers who spoke to CNN said that they had falsified documents to obtain permissions for a transplant. 

Maung had posed as the son-in-law of his buyer.

“I am suffering deep down when I look at my family. They have nothing. Meanwhile, I am also stressed about what lies ahead,” Maung told CNN before his surgery. “If I die, I hope this money could help my wife and daughter for their food and survival, even if it would not last their whole lifetime.”

Maung predicted, “The most I can live is 15 to 20 years, and then I will be gone,” but he insisted he didn’t regret the sale.

“If I had not done this now, my life would be chaotic. No job, no food. My wife and my kid didn’t have anything to eat. All three of us could have been dead or gone crazy.” he said.

An agent also spoke with CNN on the condition of anonymity and said the embassy was aware of document falsification.

“It is an act of saving a life. It is not a bad thing,” he insisted, having purchased a kidney for himself the previous year.

Myanmar households crippled as currency tumbles to record low

A rapid depreciation of Myanmar's currency is pushing up the prices of essentials, including food and medicine, crippling ordinary households in the Southeast Asian country wrecked by civil war and a crumbling economy.

According to four foreign exchange traders, the Myanmar kyat MMK= has been extremely volatile, plunging to a low of 7,500 to the dollar in the black market last week from 5,000 earlier in the month. Two traders said the plunge followed reports that the Myanmar junta was printing more kyat to prop up the currency.

"People are frantically buying (Thai) baht and selling kyat," said a money transfer agent in neighbouring Thailand who asked not to be named. "The only ones selling baht are those sending money back to Myanmar from Thailand."

The kyat has since recovered to around 6,000 to the dollar in the black market, while the central bank's official reference rate was 2,100 on Tuesday, with an online market trading rate of 3,400. But prices of essentials have not come down, six residents said.

"It used to cost about 25,000 kyat ($11.94) per week for our household groceries until about a month ago, but now it costs about 40,000 kyat," said a 27-year-old housewife from Naypyitaw, Myanmar's capital.

A spokesman for Myanmar's military government did not respond to calls seeking comment.

Once seen as a promising frontier market, Myanmar has been torn by violence since the military's 2021 overthrow of an elected government, which triggered an investor exodus, Western sanctions and protests that have grown into a nationwide armed rebellion.

The junta has steadily lost control of vast areas of the country of 55 million people, including key trade routes with China and Thailand, and has struggled to manage the economy.

Poverty in Myanmar is more widespread than at any time in the last six years, and economic growth is likely to remain at 1% in the current fiscal year, the World Bank said in June.

'No system in place’

At the same time, household incomes have declined - after adjusting for inflation - and unemployment has expanded, the World Bank said in June, underlining growing pressures for large sections of the population.

"It's chaotic and 100% caused by the regime's economic policy and decision-making," said analyst David Mathieson, referring to the rising inflation and other economic woes.

The junta has taken a heavy-handed approach in its attempt to stabilize the currency and the economy.

Since June, it has arrested at least 56 people, including gold traders, foreign exchange dealers, and agents selling foreign real estate, to try and stem the kyat's slide.

Two grocers said that the currency has fallen, and the cost of imported products, including essentials like cooking oil brought in from Thailand, has jumped in recent weeks.

A rise in transportation costs, due to a shortage of imported fuel that led to long queues in several parts of the country last week, has further impacted retail prices, they said."The price has doubled or tripled, due to transportation costs," said a grocery store owner in Mawlamyine, a city in southern Myanmar, referring to some vegetables.

Two pharmaceutical officials and a doctor said medicines, including blood glucose strips used by diabetes patients, have become between 10% and 30% more expensive in the last month.

Yet, they said, the availability of certain medicines is limited even at inflated prices due to the impact of ongoing fighting on border trade.

The National Unity Government (NUG), comprising former lawmakers and other junta opponents, said the military has no proper plan to manage the current economic situation.

"They have no system in place and are simply printing more kyats, which is fuelling inflation and creating an economic crisis like we've never seen before," said spokesman Kyaw Zaw.