Murder for body parts

The murder of human beings for their body parts is a crime in all countries. Such practices have been confirmed or suspected to occur within a handful of contexts.

Medicine murder (not to be confused with "medical murder" due to medical negligence) means the killing of a human being in order to excise body parts to use as medicine or for magical purposes in witchcraft. Medicine murder is not viewed as a form of human sacrifice in a religious sense, because the motivation is not the death of a human or the effecting of magical changes through the death of a human being, but the obtaining of an item or items from their corpse to be used in traditional medicine. Its practice in the format described below occurs primarily in sub-equatorial Africa. Medicine murder in southern Africa has been documented in some small detail in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, although it is a difficult subject to investigate because of its controversial standing in customary practices and laws. Very few research and discussion documents have been devoted to this subject. Three concerning Lesotho were published in 1951, 2000 and 2005 regarding the same events in the 1940s and 1950s; one concerning Swaziland was published in 1993 covering the 1970s and 1980s; and a commission of enquiry held in South Africa in 1995 covering medicine murder and witchcraft in the 1980s and 1990s.

The illegal organ trade has at times led to murder for body parts, because of a worldwide demand of organs for transplant and organ donors. At times, criminal organizations have engaged in kidnapping people, especially children and teens, with the victims being killed and their organs harvested for the illegal organ trade. The extent is unknown, and non-fatal organ theft and removal is more widely reported than murder.

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