World: UN expert calls for recognition of surrogacy as system of violence, exploitation and abuse, urges abolition

Geneva, 11 October,  2025.- A UN expert today called for the recognition of surrogacy as a system of violence, exploitation and abuse against women, and called for the practice to be abolished globally.

“Surrogacy reduces women and children including girls to mere commodities, stripping them of their equality and dignity and encouraging their exploitation and abuse,” said Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences in a report to the United Nations General Assembly.

The report examines the different manifestations of violence against women and girls related to surrogacy, focusing on drivers like patriarchal norms, sex and gender inequalities, economic disparities, and globalisation.

“Surrogacy is the result of commodification and commercialisation of women’s reproductive capacities, and it preys on and exploits women, particularly those from marginalised and impoverished backgrounds,” Alsalem said.

Her report highlighted physical, psychological, and economic violence faced by surrogate mothers and argued that this practice results in severe human rights violations including of their right to health, privacy, family and physical safety and increases the risk of enslavement, torture, inhumane and degrading treatment.

The Special Rapporteur said that emerging, available evidence points to serious risks for children born through surrogacy, including negative physical and mental health and development outcomes resulting from separation at birth from their mothers. Others include identity struggles, increased risk of statelessness, trafficking, and abandonment, and the arbitrary and forceful termination of their lives in utero at the discretion of the commissioning parents.

“Despite these harmful consequences, several State and non-State actors remain complicit in enabling surrogacy, including by downplaying the accompanying abuses and risks, and sanitising the practice, which is gravely concerning,” the expert said.

Alsalem stressed that a human rights-based, sex and gender-responsive approach to surrogacy requires the adoption of a global abolitionist framework that would end demand by penalising the commissioning of children via surrogacy or its facilitation by intermediaries. She also called for the decriminalisation of surrogate mothers, recognising them as victims and providing them with comprehensive assistance, protection, access to justice and reparations, and end their economic dependence on involvement in surrogacy arrangements. The report flagged the importance of raising public awareness, including through education campaigns on the harmful consequences of surrogacy.

Alsalem recommended ensuring recognition of the birth mother as the legal mother, with any transfer of parental rights permitted only through judicial adoption processes that safeguard the child’s best interests.

Other key recommendations include guaranteeing equal rights and access to services for children born through surrogacy arrangements, improving data collection, and strengthening international cooperation with a view to developing effective strategies to assist and protect victims.

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