The Problem

• Social media has propelled the growth of a once-obscure “Red Market” in human remains, enabling a global network of tens of thousands of dealers and collectors to trade in macabre items.

• Although laws vary by location, members of these groups appear aware that trading in human remains pushes legal, moral and ethical boundaries.

• As a result of increasing demand, shady middlemen have emerged who plunder burial sites and sell stolen body parts to medical students and collectors around the globe.

• Robbing graves and burial sites dehumanizes the dead, unjustly depriving families, communities and entire cultures of their legacy and history.