Uganda enacts law to stop human organ theft

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. PHOTO | BADRU KATUMBA | AFP

By REUTERS

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Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has approved a law to stop the stealing of 

human organs and tissues, the country’s health minister said on Tuesday, in a nation where women have been reportedly duped into unnecessary surgeries.

Local media have in recent years reported cases of women recruited for domestic work in the Middle East being conned into medical procedures after which their kidneys are sold in global trafficking rings.

In a tweet, Health Minister Jane Aceng thanked Museveni for signing the Uganda Human Organ Donation and Transplant Bill 2023 to better regulate the area. "The door is now open for Uganda to begin a new chapter of Organ Transplant," she said.

Read: UK jails Nigerian politician over kidney theft plot

That came a day after Museveni and government lawmakers drew widespread international condemnation for enacting one of the world's harshest anti-LQBTQ laws, which included the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality".

The donation and transplant law, the first of its kind in Uganda, prohibits any commercial dealings in human organs and tissues. Punishments include life imprisonment and stiff fines.