House aims to sanction Chinese officials involved in forced organ harvesting

The House of Representatives is working to pass a bill that would punish Chinese officials involved in the nation’s forced organ harvesting industry. The legislation aims to expose and crack down on a practice that involves stealing organs from victims who are both dead and alive. 

According to congressional investigations, China murders between 60,000 to 100,000 people per year to take their organs. The victims’ average age is 28. The United Nations estimates the forced organ removal industry is worth between $840 million and $1.7 billion.

The victims are usually members of Chinese ethnic or religious minority groups, including Falun Gong practitioners, Christians, Uyghur Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists. The bill’s sponsor said there is very credible evidence that shows beyond a reasonable doubt that this is happening everyday.

“They slaughter them as they’re taking their organs. It’s right out of Nazi Germany,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J. told Straight Arrow News. “It’s barbaric.”

Congress’ Human Rights Commission heard testimony from a Chinese doctor who said he was forced to perform the surgeries. The doctor said the practice in the Xinjiang region can be traced back to 1990.

“Our surgeon told me, hurry up, extract the liver and the two kidneys. Again, word of my superior is a command. I then turned into a trained robot,” Dr. Enver Tohti Bugdha told the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission.  

Dr. Tohti described the surgery in detail to lawmakers. He said it took 30 to 40 minutes and did not include anesthesia.

“So I started my insertion, the cut designed as upside-down letter ‘T’ shape to expose internal organs as wide and [sic] possible. My scalpel finds its way cutting his skin. Blood can be seen, it implies that his heart was still pumping blood and his body was struggling. He was alive,” Dr. Tohti said.

Rep. Smith is sponsoring the “Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2023” which would impose sanctions on those who fund or facilitate human trafficking for the purposes of organ removal. It would also block and prohibit all transactions of their property, and make them inadmissible to the United States.

“It exposes how heinous this crime is. And they have to know if they want to make money, because so much of this is about making money, that you’re precluded doing that here in the United States if you’re in any way part of this nefarious enterprise,” Smith said.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted unanimously to send the bill to the House floor for a full vote.