My latest university project has given me a quote. The quote is 'What's it worth?' We have to interperet this and produce something/anything which we see relevant to the quote.
I started thinking about how different things are worth different amounts to different people. I tried to think of things that we don't really value or even know how to value and settled with the human body. How can you put a price on human body parts that make us who we are?
After a lot of thought and discussion (and crying my eyes out at the movie '7 Pounds' starring Will Smith) I decided to do my piece on how much organs are worth. Then my boyfriend mentioned the black market.
After a lot of research I finally made the decision to do my piece on how much human body organs are worth on the black market. And, it's surprisingly very interesting but also sad and worrying.
The black market is simply an illegal 'underground' market in which organisations buy and sell human organs to those that need them. However, this isn't just about taking a kidney from someone who is deceased, oh no no, this is about an ongoing market for taking organs from living donors, and not always by the choice of the individual. Some people in under developed countries are kidnapped, drugged and literally cut open and left to die in some cases. It is horrendous.
There's actually a village in an underdeveloped country known as 'The Kidney Village' because almost every man had sold his kidney for money to provide for their family. Can you actually believe it? It sounds crazy but goes on in literally every country in the world.
Anyway, if you care to know how much your body on the black market is worth, take a look below at a poster info graphics piece I've created on the topic.
I hope you find it as interesting as I did learning about it.
