The bizarre story of Nepal’s “Kidney Village” Hokse is a small village located in the east of Kathmandu-Nepal, filled with mud-brick homes and known for its residents commuting to the capital for work since staying in their home village means making less than $2 a day working on small farms. But what appears to be a normal small town, has a dark secret hiding within. Out of the 75 households in a single ward of homes, at least one member has sold a kidney. T he story began when smooth-talking organ traffickers regularly visited Hokse and other small villages for over a decade, in an attempt to convince the poor and uneducated residents to have operations in southern India. One of their regular tricks was to play on their naivety and tell them that their kidney would grow back! Some victims were kidnapped and forced to give up an organ, and some were lied to about needing an operation and the organ was harvested without their knowledge. Other villagers were more aware of the phy...