State prosecutor Cecilia Zangazanga made the observation as four people were jailed for trying to sell private parts for 8m kwacha (£16,000) in May, reports the UK-based Nyasa Times . Two of them were arrested at a petrol station in the capital, Lilongwe, having been supplied with the genitalia by a hospital mortuary supervisor and attendant who'd cut the tissue from a corpse, the report says. The quartet was jailed for a total of 26 years.

Zangazanga asked for a long sentence as a deterrent, saying the number of cases was increasing, reports the site which has correspondents across the southern African state. In April, it reported that a 30-year-old businessman was fighting for life after having his genitals cut off in an attack in the southern city of Zomba. After a similar assault a year earlier, the website called the trade a sign of people's desperation to escape poverty. Genitals were in "high demand from witchdoctors", while "merchants" also sold penises and testicles abroad, it said.