Every year thousands of organs are bought and sold on a black market that flourishes in dozens of countries, where the rule of law is a hostage to the dollar sign. Director Ric Esther Bienstock investigates the lucrative and shadowy world of black market organ trafficking.
With unprecedented access to all the players, Tales from the Organ Trade explores the legal, moral and ethical issues involved in this complex life and death business. From the Street-level brokers to the rogue surgeons; the impoverished men and women who are willing to sacrifice a slice of their own bodies for a quick payday; and the desperate patients who face the agonising choice of obeying the law or saving their lives. Speaking openly they reveal a harsh reality, where the villains often save lives and the medical establishment, helpless too, watches people die.
Directed by Ric Esther Bienstock
Duration: 82′
Year: 2013
The Frontline Club will be hosting the first RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues) training course in the UK. The four-days of training will end with a Group Show that is open to everyone on Wednesday 9 October at 7pm, to register to attend see HERE.
RISC offers a four-day course in emergency medicine to freelance journalists working in dangerous areas. The course is completely free for qualified journalists working in all media – photography, print, radio and video. RISC covers instruction fees and accommodations (if needed). Each graduate is provided with a comprehensive medical kit to take with him or her back into the field.
RISC is a nonprofit organisation based in New York City. It was founded by journalist Sebastian Junger after the death of his friend and colleague, Tim Hetherington, in Libya in 2011. Hetherington’s wound, though very serious, may not have been fatal had one of the journalists or rebels around him had the right medical training. Surviving a gunshot or shrapnel wound is often a matter of doing the right thing in the first few minutes, and RISC training focuses on that brief, critical period of time.
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Since Italian NGO Emergency was established in 1994 it has provided free, high quality health care to more than 5,200,000 victims of war, landmines and poverty.
Founded by Gino Strada and a group of colleagues, Emergency has now worked in 16 countries, building hospitals, surgical centres, rehabilitation centres, paediatric clinics, first aid posts, primary health clinics, a maternity centre and a centre for cardiac surgery.
It is with great pleasure that we welcome Gino Strada to the Frontline Club, where he will be talking to photographer Giles Duley about his life and work as a war surgeon and founder of Emergency.
Gino Strada graduated in medicine and trauma surgery from the University of Milan in 1978. In 1988 he decided to apply his surgical experience to helping and treating war victims. From 1989 to 1994 he worked in war zones across the world from Ayacucho, Peru to Kabul, Afghanistan, with the Geneva-based International Red Cross. The experience accumulated from years of war surgery made him realise the need for a small, agile, highly specialised medical organisation and in 1994 with few resources he and a group of colleagues founded Emergency.
Giles Duley worked for 10 years as a fashion and music photographer before becoming an accomplished humanitarian photographer. His work has been exhibited and published worldwide in many respected publications including Vogue, GQ, Esquire, Rolling Stone, The Sunday Times, The Observer and the New Statesman. In 2010 he was nominated for an Amnesty International Media Award and was a winner at the Prix de Paris in 2010 & 2012. His self-portrait was selected for the 2012 Taylor Wessing Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. In 2011, whilst on patrol with 75th Cavalry Regiment, United States Army in Afghanistan, Duley stepped on an improvised explosive device. He was severely injured, losing both legs and an arm.
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Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero is scheduled to request the dissolution of Parliament on Monday to make way for early elections on 20 November. Spain was not due to hold elections until March next year, but Zapatero has come under heavy criticism amid debt and budget problems, with persistent rumours that Spain will be the next country to ask for an EU bailout.
In St John’s, Antigua, Kaniel Martin and Avie Howell are set to be sentenced after being found guiltyon 27 July of the murders of Welsh honeymooners Ben and Catherine Mullany exactly two years earlier.
Ukrainian opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko’s abuse of power trial resumes on Tuesday after a 15-day hiatus. Tymoshenko is accused of misspending some $280m while she was Prime Minister in 2009, charges which her supporters say are politically motivated.
Embattled Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou meets with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as his country faces increasing pressure from the IMF, the European Central Bank, domestic trade unions and other European leaders. Papandreou’s government has to come to an agreement with its lending troika to secure the next €8bn tranche of its loan before 10 October, when it’s estimated the country will run out of money to pay its bills.
In Conakry on Wednesday, Guineans mark the two-year anniversary of the 28 September, 2009 stadium massacre in which at least 157 people were killed when security forces opened fire on tens of thousands of people demonstrating against the junta government. The anniversary is the first since President Alpha Condé was elected in November last year, taking power from the leaders of the 2008 coup d’état.
In Manama, 21 Bahraini activists and members of the opposition who were convicted in June of plotting to overthrow the government and collaborating with a terrorist organisation are scheduled to find out whether their appeal against life sentences has been successful.
The verdict is the first of two high-profile decisions the court is expected to make this week; on Thursday, 47 medical staff accused of attempting to topple the monarchy and inciting hatred against the regime learn whether they have been found guilty.
Saudi Arabia holds its second-ever municipal elections on Thursday, which were delayed from 22 September. The polls were finally scheduled earlier this year as an olive branch from the government as fears mounted that the Arab Spring could spread to the country.
Following a Constitutional Court decision earlier this month ruling that Germany’s commitment to the EU bailout fund is legal, the German Parliament votes on a bill approving new powers for the European Financial Stability Facility which will increase its lending capacity and authorise it to buy government bonds.
On Friday, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania delivers the long-awaited judgement in its ‘Government II’ trial, in which four former cabinet ministers are accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The trial began in September 2003, and the defendants were acquitted of several charges in October 2005.
It’s a relatively quiet weekend: China celebrates Chinese National Day on Saturday, and the seven Italian scientists charged with manslaughter for failing to warn L’Aquila residents about the April 2009 earthquake return to court.
The next session of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change talks open in Panama City on Sunday.
Closer to home, the Conservative Party autumn conference opens in Manchester, with unions and anti-cuts activists planning a march to protest government policies.
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