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

[IwantToRetire]

A UN expert today (10 October 2025) 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.

Article continues at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/un-expert-calls-recognition-surrogacy-system-violence-exploitation-and-abuse

Delighted with this news.

Good.

Fucking good.

It's about time...

Surrogacy is abhorrent, this is good news.

Great

I wonder how or if the papers that usually take the puff piece approach to this topic will handle this news.

Couldn't agree more.

I heard her on Woman's Hour. To be honest I don't think she made the case very well to ban altruistic surrogacy alongside commercial. She said there was exploitation and subtle coercion eg from family members, but she didn't really sound convincing. Whereas for commercial she was much more convincing in her arguments.

In fact in terms of news its over a week ago.

I dont remember this being mentioned any where.

And truth be told how much impact does the UN have, and sadly Reem Alsalem doesn't get much support within the UN.

So not even sure is this is now official UN policy.

I think it is just her saying it should be.

I bloody love Reem Alsalem.

If they would concentrate on the fact that it really is an act of violence against the child, and that selling/gifting children is not ok, "altruistic" surrogacy would really look no better than commercial.

Annaïg Birdy from Not All Gays Ireland delivered a powerful speech to the UN this month addressing the harms of altruistic surrogacy as well as commercial. It's really worth a watch/listen https://x.com/NotAllGays/status/1976216693459284151?t=YucWRTJ-rSHPLRoZ8aCVGw&s=19

Exactly. I do believe some altruistic surrogacy is done with the best of intentions..... But it's still commissioning a traumatic event to happen to a newborn child.

Joint statement in support of UN report recommending the abolition of surrogacy
https://declaration-surrogacy-casablanca.org/joint-statement-in-support-of-un-report-recommending-the-abolition-of-surrogacy/

Me too. She’s a warrior for women’s rights.

A really powerful and thought provoking submission by Annaïg Birdy. It is good to hear that she believes surrogacy is violence against women and highlighting the coercion used to get us usually vulnerable women to agree to the risks to both mother and child.

Me too, she is amazing.

Yes I am not in favour of even altruistic surrogacy in general. I just felt she hadn't convinced on that point in the interview. She didn't really talk about the welfare of the child or the trauma of being separated from the (birth / gestational / surrogate) mother. As an adopter I very much appreciate the impact that can have.

Clearly they've not got the memo that humans are resources to be bought and sold. A bit reactionary if you ask me.

Yes there's adoption in my family too. In the most "favourable" circumstances imaginable (ie without the multiple traumas that adopted children so often come with) but still there's an undeniable lifelong impact.

The other big point that I never see spoken about is that a family with an adopted child will be addressing the trauma. They get preferential places at schools and teachers are informed so that they can hold it in mind. Ideally there is family therapy.

Families with a surrogate born child don't do this. They don't acknowledge let alone address that their child suffered an attachment trauma at birth. Any subsequent issues will not be understood through this lens because it would be too offensive/ difficult for them to admit.

Adopters are also assessed, trained, references sought....all to ensure they are suited able to meet the needs of a child who will at the least have the trauma of being separated from birth family and experience the life long impact and knowledge of that. Life story and later life leters are meant to be provided and post adoption support available. Because we know they have to live with that life long trauma of being separated from birth family. Relinquished rather than removed children and adults struggle too, the choice of the mother to give them up isn't a balm. We know all this, we have enough evidence by now. There are reasons we don't do secretive adoptions anymore with a pretence at a new and fresh start- those children grew up into adults and told how it messed them up. We understand more about attachment, resilience, identity... legally social workers and courts have to keep a child with a birth family member if at all possible. Because it is accepted as the best outcome for the child, and they have the right to family life and many more reasons.

Yet as far as I know commissioning parents undergo no training, assessment, reference checks, no life story support is provided. Why? The child was removed from their birth mother and grows up without them, sometimes not knowing either biological parent - egg or sperm donor. It makes no sense. The fact they were created for the purpose of removal is somehow meant to make it all ok; a happy story for the child, rather than making the best of a bad situation as adoption is. But the bare bones are the same. Or worse, I would argue, because the child was conceived with every intention of inflicting such traumas on it.

And that's before the significant risks and impact for the surrogate and egg donor are considered.

Yes it's deeply concerning how much knowledge is completely ignored when it comes to surrogacy.

The organisations which ought to be centre stage in opposing surrogacy in all forms are the psychological, counselling and psychotherapy organisations. Their practitioners are trained in infant development and are working with families around adoption. Why are they silent? And what about charities like the NSPCC?

The deliberate ignoring of knowledge is what I can't get my head around. If these surrogacy farms were running at the same time as the Magdalene laundries that would still be wrong but it would make more sense. It has to be the potential money it or something like that to make so many people pretend that they don't know these things.

Yes, as we know money and class open all sorts of doors. And there's money in it for the agency.

Language around parenting changed from parental rights to responsibility to reflect a change in mindset and shift of focus to the child. Again, surrogacy doesn't follow.

I think capitalism and big pharma are the driving forces behind it. And a great chance to practice good old fashioned misogynist exploitation but with a veneer of respectability that standard child trafficking doesn't have.

But because surrogacy is sometimes used by gay couples, there's the smokescreen of faux progressive "queer rights*" to hide behind too which could explain the cowardice that makes people pretend they don't know why it's wrong.

*In quotation marks not because queer people don't have rights, but because it would be all the 'phobics under the sun to seriously suggest that the right to exploit and inflict trauma was one of them.

Altruistic surrogacy is treating a child as a thing which you can make and then give away. Just as commodifying as commercial surrogacy.