VATICAN CITY – Governments around the world need to do more to stop thousands of organs being trafficked every year, including strengthening legislation and improving regulation of hospitals, an advisor to the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Only a handful of countries including the United States, Spain and Sweden have dedicated laws on organ donation, according to Francis Delmonico, who is also a professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School.

“In the transplantation sphere, governments should be monitoring who are the donors, who can be the recipients,” Delmonico told the Thomson Reuters Foundation at a conference organised by the Global Sustainability Network (GSN).

“At the moment, this transparency doesn’t exist.”

Organ transplants save thousands of lives every year, but experts say demand far outstrips supply, creating illicit markets and “transplant tourists” who travel to countries to have operations they cannot get at home.

Since 2000, organ trafficking has spread from mainly South and Southeast Asian countries to Latin America, North Africa and other regions afflicted by poverty and political instability, according to a 2015 document for the European Parliament.

It said a World Health Organization (WHO) 2007 estimate found around 5-10 percent of all kidney and liver transplants performed globally are conducted with illicitly obtained organs

Delmonico said the illicit nature of the trade made it difficult to measure its impact, but that global inequality made the poor “ripe for exploitation”.

“It’s a social injustice issue,” he said. “Who are getting (organs)? People who are rich! Who is providing this? People who are poor and dying.”

In 2016, Pope Francis called organ trafficking one of the “new forms of slavery” and a crime against humanity.

Delmonico also called on the US State Department to include the illicit practice in its annual Trafficking in Human Persons Report, which ranks countries on their anti-trafficking efforts.

“Please don’t exclude organ trafficking. They should see it, just as the Pope said, as a human slavery problem,” he said.

Reuters

“A beast” and “evil” were the words that the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg used when it sentenced a 32-year-old serial rapist to 15 life terms, plus 105 years behind bars.

Kito Christopher Malumbele was convicted of 52 counts, including 12 rape and 17 kidnapping charges.

According to National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Hurbetin Phindi Louw-Mjonondwane, Malumbele started his reign of terror in Tshepisong in Soweto in April 2014.

“During 2016, the investigating officer received one of the cases. Unbeknown to him, there [were] 13 more cases. He traced the accused by using the telephone records of the victim’s robbed cell phone,” Mjonondwane said.

She added that the officer arrested Malumbele on June 17, 2016.

After his DNA was positively linked to the case, the forensic science laboratory issued an investigative lead report that linked him to more cases, Mjonondwane added.

“The accused ambushed his victims and held them at knife point while dragging them into open fields.  There he would rob them of their belongings and rape them,” she said.

In some cases, the accused and his accomplice raped daughters and mothers in front of each other, she added. In another case, a woman was raped her while her crying baby was next to her.

Aggravation of sentence

In aggravation of sentence, State advocate Nerissa Muller presented the evidence of Captain Myburgh of the police’s Investigative Psychology Unit.

Myburgh classified Malumbele as a serial rapist.

“She testified that, during her interview with the accused, he still vehemently denied that he committed these crimes.  Instead, he claimed that he might have had consensual sex with some of the victims,” Mjonondwane said.

Malumbele denied he knew the names and faces of the women he was accused of raping. Instead, he said they may have been one of his “one-night stands”.

Myburgh said Malumbele’s statements indicated and proved he had no respect for women and only saw them as sexual objects.

“She (Myburgh) indicated to the court that the accused has proven that he has a very poor prognosis for rehabilitation and will most likely remain a threat to society as long as he is alive,” Mjonondwane said.

The NPA has welcomed the sentence and hopes that it will serve as a deterrent to like-minded rapists who target defenceless women.

An on-duty police officer allegedly shot and killed his wife near the entrance of Voorpos Primary School in East London on Friday.

The woman had been attending an informal school governing body (SGB) introduction session when she was shot in full view of the school staff and management.

“Police were called on site and a case was opened with them,” Eastern Cape Department of Education spokesperson Mali Mtima said.

“Apart from that, medics were also called [to] the scene by the school leadership, but declared the SGB member dead upon arrival at the scene.”

Buffalo City education district director Edgar Klaasen arranged counselling for those who witnessed the shooting.

Police spokesperson Captain Nkosiko Mzuku said the police officer was in custody.

“The circumstances surrounding the incident are unclear at the moment,” he said.

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate is investigating a case of murder, Mzuku added.

MEC for Education Mandla Makupula expressed his condolences to the woman’s family and friends.

“Our fraternity has been robbed of a selfless individual who sacrificed her own time just to ensure that our communities participate meaningfully in transforming our education to meet the societal needs,” he said.

“May her soul rest in eternal peace. I hope her family will find solace in the Almighty.”

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