UN chair raises the alarm over organ harvesting disguised as ritual killings

Chair of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Funds for Victims of Trafficking and Executive Chairman of Roost Foundation, Dame Julie Okah-Donli has raised the alarm over increasing cases of organ harvesting in the country being paraded as ritual murders.

She said an increased number of people are in the business of buying and selling of organs.

According to her, when the victims are eventually found, people conclude that they are all part of rituals murders.

Okah-Donli added for the country to eliminate child abuse and molestation, President Muhammadu Buhari needs to make governors who are yet to domesticate and enforce the child’s right act do so.

She said the President can use an Executive order to ensure governors comply with the directive.

The chairman said it was unfortunate that some states are yet to domesticate the act despite the growing number of cases of child abuse, molestation and a lot more.

Okah-Donli said this in Abuja while speaking with newsmen at the one-year anniversary of the foundation and her declaration of senatorial ambition.

She added that forcing state governments to domesticate the act will resolve the issue of reluctance on their part.

“Everyone needs to ensure that the child’s right act is domesticated, I don’t see any reason why anyone would not want to protect the rights of a child, I will be advocating going forward that states must be made, it is no longer an option to domesticate and enforce the child’s right and VAPP act, states could be made in form of an executive order, that might be the only way to go for cases where people think they don’t have to do it.

“I am not sure if it is a new development but it’s something that has been going on for a while, young children for Labour exploitation are way billed and sent ahead in buses, without anyone in order not to raise suspicion and the receiver will be at the motor parks to receive them just like you waybill goods and properties.

“People know what’s going on, the transporters have an idea, when they see children like this being sent off in vehicles; usually they are packed up in vehicles, which should raise an alarm that something is not right.

“Then we see a lot of cases that people refer to as ritual murders, which in my opinion are cases of organ harvesting. There is a lot of organ harvesting going on now, I believe that these guys are into the business of buying and selling organs, so we need to raise a lot of awareness, which is what we are doing in Roost foundation now. We have started raising a lot of awareness on organ harvesting because people are very ignorant about it,” she said.

Team leads United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) on trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants portfolio, Abimbola Adewumi said the Federal Government needs to create specialized courts at the Federal level to handle cases of trafficking and sexual violence.

She added that “One of the things we think that slows down our prosecution is the fact that we don’t have specialised judges that sit on Trafficking in-person cases (TIP), the ones we gave a seat on multiple cases, with TIP cases the victims are humans and as witnesses in court may change their minds tomorrow so ones we have all the evidence, the faster the court processes it, the better for us all.” (The Nation)