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Ugandan President Signs Bill Against Theft of Human Organs

© Flickr / Paul Kagame Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni
Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 31.05.2023
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In recent years, local media have revealed cases of women hired as domestic workers in the Middle East being conned into undergoing medical procedures, after which their kidneys are sold to global human trafficking rings.
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has signed a bill establishing a legal framework for organ, cell and tissue transplants to curb organ theft, according to his presidential statement.
The country's medical authorities expressed gratitude to the Ugandan leader for approving the legislation aimed at better regulating this field.

"The door is now open for Uganda to begin a new chapter of Organ Transplant," Health Minister Jane Aceng tweeted.

The Human Organ Donation and Transplant Bill 2023, the first of its type in Uganda, outlaws any commercial dealings involving human organs and tissues. Penalties include life imprisonment and harsh fines.

The country’s influential Catholic Church and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime have previously spoken about the prevalence of organ trafficking in the country, carried out "by fraud, deception, debt bondage, abduction and abuse of positions of vulnerability."

The Ugandan lawmakers passed the legislation last September.
The law against theft of human organs was signed by the president on the same day as the much-discussed Anti-Homosexuality Bill, regarded as one of the world's toughest anti-LGBTQ laws, which has elicited a wave of condemnation from the West.
Yoweri Museveni is speaking to members of Uganda's ruling party - Sputnik Africa, 1920, 31.05.2023
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In addition, the Markets Act was enacted at the same time, "strengthening the regulation, management, and administration of markets", and the Museums and Monuments Act, aimed at "protecting cultural and natural heritage resources and the environment."
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