Disqualified Bodies: A Sociolegal Analysis of the Organ Trade in Cairo, Egypt

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lasr.12269
• Date: 01 June 2017
• Published date: 01 June 2017

Disqualif‌ied Bodies: A Sociolegal Analysis of the

Organ Trade in Cairo, Egypt

Se

an Columb

Legislative and policy interventions in response to the organ trade have cen-

tered on the introduction of criminal sanctions in an effort to deter organsales

and/or “traff‌icking.” Yet, such measures fail to take account of the social and

political processes that facilitate the exploitation of individuals in organ mar-

kets 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 marginaliza-

tion and social exclusion leave people vulnerable to exploitation in organ mar-

kets. 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.

The organ trade is a complex social problem grounded in

deep-seated structural issues. However, discourses of violence

and criminalization predominant in media (Holmes 2016;

Pokharel 2015) and off‌icial reports (Council of Europe 2014;

OSCE 2013; UNODC 2010) characterize the organ trade as a sin-

gularly violent crime. Representing the organ trade in stark crim-

inal terms has predisposed legislative action toward crime control

and law enforcement. Consequently, criminal sanctions prohibit-

ing organ sales has become the focal point of legal intervention in

The author wishes to thank all the respondents who participated in this study. Special

thanks to Santo Musa Chol Wol for his friendship and assistance in Cairo. Thank you also

to Anastasia Tataryn,and the anonymous reviewers and editors at the Law & Society Review,

for their helpful comments and suggestions on previous drafts. This research was sup-

ported by grants from the Sociolegal Studies Association and the William and Betty

MacQuitty Trust.

Please direct all correspondence to Se

an Columb, School of Law and Social Justice,

University of Liverpool, Mulberry Court, Liverpool L7 7EZ, UK; e-mail: Sean.Columb@

liverpool.ac.uk.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution

License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the

original work is properly cited.

Law & Society Review, Volume 51, Number 2 (2017)

V

C2017 The Authors Law & Society Review published by Wiley Periodicals,

Inc. on behalf of Law and Society Association.

282

response to a phenomenon embedded in social, political, and

economic malaise. This narrow emphasis on criminality overlooks

important intersections of agency, culture, identity, and politics,

diverting critical attention away from the broader social and eco-

nomic arrangements that leave people vulnerable to exploitation

in organ markets. Whereas the threat of organ “traff‌icking” con-

tinues to capture the imagination of political and legislative

experts, as evidenced by the Council of Europe Convention against

Traff‌icking in Organs (2014), there has been relatively less atten-

tion given to the types of environments and circumstances that

predispose certain individuals or groups toward organ sale.

Drawing on the experiences of Sudanese organ sellers, this paper

will go some way in f‌illing this knowledge gap, exploring the dif-

ferent dynamics fueling and intersecting within organ trading

networks in Cairo, Egypt.

While a number of studies, largely in the f‌ield of anthropology,

consider the challenges of organ donation from moral, cultural,

and ethical perspectives (see Hamdy 2012; Lock 2002; Scheper-

Hughes and Waquaint 2000; Sharp 2006) there remains a dearth

of evidence-based research into the legal, social, and political fac-

tors that underpin organ markets and the networks that supply

them. Furthermore, there is a lack of critical engagement with the

implications of current legislative and policy mechanisms in

response to the organ trade. Building on existing studies on illicit

markets and organ donation (Goodwin 2006; Mendoza 2011;

Scheper-Hughes 2000; Yea 2010) this paper explores the link

between increased urbanization, migration patterns, informaliza-

tion, and the emergence of organ markets in the Egyptian-

Sudanese context. Informed by original empirical data, gathered

via a series of in-depth interviews, this paper provides much need-

ed insight into the processes of exploitation behind organ markets,

in a country identif‌ied as having an active trade in organs

(Shimazono 2007). Further, it considers the impact of new laws

introduced in Egypt to counter organ trading.

The experiences of Sudanese migrants demonstrate how pro-

cesses of social exclusion and economic marginalization can lead

to variable degrees of exploitation manifested, in this instance, in

their involvement in organ markets. Criminalization alone cannot

address these dynamics. Accordingly, analysis is redirected toward

the legal barriers and policy decisions that shape the poor bar-

gaining position of organ sellers in the Egyptian-Sudanese con-

text. While this study does not infer a def‌initive model or pattern

of organ trading, it does illustrate some of the legal arrange-

ments, policy decisions, and social conditions that contribute to

an anomic environment, which has fostered a subculture of organ

sales, amongst migrant populations in particular. The empirical

Columb 283