A world where people understand both the organ trade and its victims from a comprehensive humanitarian point of view, where people notice the crisis that is the organ donor shortage and feel both empowered by others’ perspectives to become advocates themselves.
Mission
Our mission is to raise awareness about the organ trade as an international ethical crisis while humanizing its victims and strengthening our trust in regulated mechanisms of organ donation/transplantation.
Rationale
A global shortage of organ donations has led to a long list of people waiting for transplants. In Ontario alone, over 1,600 people are waiting for an organ. In 2015, 127 Ontarians died before receiving an organ. Desperate patients and families have turned to the illegal organ trade, which exploits poor and vulnerable people in developing countries by offering them payment to undergo dangerous organ harvesting procedures. The financial benefits to the donors are limited or even negative due to the deterioration of their health, and the procedure for recipients comes with a much higher risk of complications than legal transplantations. Countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Australia have been identified as major organ-buying countries. We aim to address underlying problem, the shortage of legal organ donations often resulting from sociocultural barriers and a lack of public education, to increase the availability of organs in Canada and ease the burden of the illegal organ trade.
Organ Advocacy Initiative 