The price of a kidney in Kenya? Just under $1,000 plus a motorbike. That is how 30-year-old Joseph Japiny, from Oyugis town in Homa Bay County in western Kenya, got his boda boda - a motorbike taxi he uses to earn a living.
Mr Japiny told the ENACT project that he was introduced to Jadhot, a broker recruiting young men into the kidney-harvesting underworld that operates between Eldoret, Busia and Nairobi. Mr Jadhot said that if he donated one kidney, he would be paid $984 as a down payment and another $984 in the form of a Boxer motorcycle. This he could use as a boda boda taxi - a common occupation among young East African men.
Mr Japiny agreed to the deal and was taken to a private clinic in Eldoret for tests. Two weeks later, he was back in Eldoret where he received food and accommodation and underwent regular blood, urine and faecal tests over the next three weeks. Throughout this time, Mr Japiny had a minder - a person hired to look after those whose kidneys were going to be harvested.
