Do not sell an organ or recruit donors for a broker

Nothing to refrain from it.

The Human Organ Donation and Transplantation Regulation prohibits buying or selling organs in any form or participating in related activity. Article 10 prohibits obtaining a living organ from anyone under 18 for transplantation; Article 11 limits eligible living recipients to the specified relatives. Article 37 provides for investigation by county-level or higher health authorities, confiscation of illegal gains, and fines of ten to 20 times the transaction amount. Participating healthcare workers lose their license and are permanently barred from medical and health services; criminal liability applies where established. The regulation took effect on 1 May 2024 and replaced the former transplantation regulation. Criminal Law Article 234-1 punishes organizing others to sell organs with up to five years and a fine, or at least five years plus a fine or confiscation in serious cases. Taking an organ without consent, from someone under 18, or through coercion or deception is addressed under intentional-injury or homicide provisions. In the Zheng Wei case finalized by Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court on 20 August 2014, 15 defendants were involved in 51 kidneys and over RMB 10.34 million. Donors received RMB 20,000–25,000; recipients were charged RMB 180,000 or 190,000 initially and RMB 210,000 or 220,000 later. The operation used a four-story building rented for RMB 7,500 a month, described by its head nurse as filthy and without resuscitation equipment. Zheng received 12 years for organizing organ sales, and the other 14 received three and a half to nine years. In the official case often described as a teenager selling a kidney for an iPhone, 17-year-old Wang had his right kidney removed in Chenzhou on 28 April 2011 in a privately contracted department of a hospital without transplant qualification. At discharge on 2 May he received RMB 22,000. The recipient paid the intermediary RMB 150,000 and US$10,000, and the principal offender gained over RMB 56,000. Wang developed renal insufficiency, assessed as serious injury and grade-3 disability.

The apparent one-off payment can come at the cost of permanent disability, not a problem resolved by a few months’ rest. In the teenager’s case, five defendants were prosecuted for intentional injury under Article 234(2), with failure to verify that the donor was a minor among the relevant facts. Organ-sale organizers and those removing organs from minors remain exposed to the corresponding offenses under current provisions. The original describes illegal operations in rented or borrowed premises, without adequate evaluation beyond matching or reliable postoperative follow-up, leaving nobody accountable when complications occur. A genuine donation to an eligible relative should go through an authorized transplant institution, ethics review, and no payment. Voluntary deceased donation is also unpaid and outside this entry’s concern. For physical consequences, see chapter 1, entry 35. If financial hardship has led you to consider an organ sale, start with unemployment benefits, temporary assistance, and dibao. Avoid the alternative trap of fabricated loan applications.

State Council (2023). Human Organ Donation and Transplantation Regulation, Order 767, Articles 5, 10, 11, and 37. https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/zhengceku/202312/content_6920196.htm; Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Criminal Law consolidated through Amendment XI, Article 234-1. https://flk.npc.gov.cn/detail?id=ff808181796a636a0179822a19640c92; Supreme People’s Procuratorate (9 April 2012). Prosecution in the teenager organ-sale case. https://www.spp.gov.cn/gs/201204/t20120409_34342.shtml; Langfang Intermediate People’s Court, Hebei, repost (2 September 2014). Final judgment in the major kidney-trafficking case involving 51 kidneys. https://lfzy.hebeicourt.gov.cn/article/detail/2014/09/id/1430881.shtml.