On April 14, 2025, an expert online discussion was held on the topic “Surrogacy in the context of combating human trafficking.” This is the first event in a series of discussions organized by the CSO “Democracy Development Center” at the initiative of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, in cooperation with the Public Council under the inter-factional association “Equal Opportunities” of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the National Agency of Ukraine for Civil Service Issues, the Higher School of Public Administration, and with the support of UN Women in Ukraine. українською
The event was attended by:
- Maria Dmytrieva, Programme Director, Democracy Development Center (Ukraine);
- Oksana Pustova, State Expert on Human Trafficking, Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine;
- Yulia Honchar, UN Women program analyst on gender responsive governance;
- Yuliia Lykhach, Director, Higher School of Public Governance;
- Oleksandra Novikova, European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW);
- Tetiana Rudenko, Senior Project Officer, OSCE Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings;
- Marie Josèphe Devillers, International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (ICASM), France;
- Dr. Sheela Suryanarayanan, Associate Professor, Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad (India);
- Zoryana Skaletska, Kyiv City Council Member, Minister of Health of Ukraine (2019–2020).
The topic of surrogacy in the context of combating human trafficking is a difficult one, but it is critical for protecting women’s rights, for understanding new forms of exploitation and for developing adequate policies at the national level. It is important that the international partners of the event were representatives of the International Coalition to Ban Surrogacy (ICASM), the European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW) and the International Women’s Platform for Action (WOPAI). Expert support for the event was also provided by the Office of the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings.
An overview of the situation with the vulnerability of Ukrainian migrant women in Europe, and the dangers of such commercial offers to women in an unstable financial situation, was made by Oleksandra Novikova (European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW). In turn, Tetiana Rudenko, Senior Project Manager of the Office of the OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, provided data analysis on the topic “Surrogacy and the Risks of Human Trafficking: A Strategic Approach”. Marie Josèphe Devillers, representative of the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (ICASM), France, also presented the study “Surrogacy as a Predatory System Targeting Vulnerable Women. A New Chapter in Human Trafficking”. Dr. Sheela Suryanarayanan, Associate Professor Centre for Women’s Studies, University of Hyderabad (India), spoke about “Ethical Challenges of Surrogacy in India and Similarities with Ukraine.” Zoryana Skaletska, a member of the Kyiv City Council and Minister of Health of Ukraine in 2019–2020, provided expert commentary on the topic “Legal Certainty and Medical Ethics in Surrogacy: Between Instruction and Responsibility.”
In particular, Oleksandra Novikova emphasized that she can become a voice for Ukrainian migrant women as one of the most vulnerable groups, since this topic is not covered enough when talking about surrogacy. According to her, several years ago she herself received a message from a migrant woman like herself with an offer to earn money. It was about egg donation. In 2022, a study was conducted, according to which surrogacy is not a choice for women, especially for migrant women, because they are forced, threatened, and manipulated. They are promised high wages and support. This sounds realistic, but then women become victims of exploitation, lose control over their own lives and freedom. After the Russian invasion of 2022, many women found themselves abroad, they did not immediately understand that danger was nearby, they did not understand what was happening. Greece, where Oleksandra Novikova is, constantly finds itself at the center of scandals due to surrogacy practices. In 2023, a private clinic with a professor of medicine was discovered on the island of Crete and it turned out that when direct payment for surrogacy is prohibited, egg donations can be financed.
According to data provided by Tetyana Rudenko, the surrogacy industry is worth $14 billion as of 2022, and is projected to grow to $129 billion by 2032. Currently, there has been a surge in demand due to medical and social factors. Some countries have already banned surrogacy or are improving their by-laws, others are still in the process, some have banned it, including the inability to make such agreements abroad for their citizens; there are also case laws that regulate these relationships. According to her, in 2019, a whole network was exposed in Greece, which covered many countries: pregnant women were brought for illegal adoption, and their eggs were also removed. Surrogacy is one of the forms of multi-vector exploitation of women. The latest high-profile case is the capture of a group of women from Thailand for surrogacy, who were also forced to donate eggs. This group was transported through several countries to Georgia. Only one of the women managed to buy off the traffickers with the help of her relatives, and her testimony helped expose this network. The most progressive legislation in this regard is in Italy, which prohibits all types of surrogacy both domestically and abroad. After all, surrogacy practices do not protect the children themselves in any way. They do not have the right to reside, do not have the right to inheritance, etc. A court case in Italy did not hand over the child to the ordering parents, leaving it under the care of the state for further legal adoption by other people, arguing that the unethical nature of ordering a child as a commodity makes it impossible to hand over the child to such a family. The European court also determined in one of its verdicts that the state must have mechanisms for establishing a connection between the child and the surrogate mother, which, for example, does not exist in Ukraine where orphanages are already overflowing with these children. Traffickers deliberately seek out vulnerable women, including widows (which is especially actual during the war in Ukraine), single women, and there are also women who are forced to do this by their relatives. The woman does not have complete and correct information about what will happen to her, Also, after giving birth, she does not have any medical care – as in practices involving organ removal, no one is interested in the future fate of the donor, and the stereotypical attitude towards women as a mechanism for bearing a child is strengthened.
As gender expert Maria Dmytrieva added, surrogacy is actively promoted in Ukraine under the slogan “While there is war, it is cheaper there.” Interested parties directly declare that if Ukrainian women refuse to do it, they will bring women here from even poorer countries. There have already been cases when women were brought to Ukraine from Central Asian countries, and their fate after birth is unknown. That is, our country, in addition to being a country of origin for surrogacy practices, has also become a country of transit.
Marie Josèphe Devillers added that surrogacy is a form of violence against women. Ending this practice is part of the feminist agenda. Surrogacy is misogyny, it is violence and reproductive exploitation. First of all, it is a predation on women, but it is also a predation on their countries, it is a drain on medical resources, inequality between the customer and the woman who gives birth. This is the result of economic dependence, the subordinate position of the women involved in relation to the customers. The money received does not provide any stable financial improvement. In fact, the funds are displaced into dubious areas of activity. Even if surrogacy takes place within the country, even on an altruistic basis and within the same family – this always applies to the poorer and weaker. They always involve migrant women. Richer people do not want to risk their health and exploit the poor. In Ukraine, according to the announced data, about 2,000 thousand such children are born every year. “I was shocked to hear that in South Africa an entire surrogacy sector is growing while there are no basic medical services for citizens. Doctors who work in surrogacy are trained in the West, but they work for the interests of the parents-clients, not for the health of the women. In Kenya, the entire tourism industry is tied to surrogacy. When India first began restricting surrogacy practices in 2015, the Indian clinics simply moved to Kenya. In Africa, there is generally a lot of social pressure on women to give birth, while in Europe it is mostly a woman’s right,” said Marie Josèphe Devillers. She stated that the ban on surrogacy should happen in the same way as the ban on human trafficking, the ban on rape, this is an international node that must be condemned. This has already happened in Italy. In 2015, the European Parliament condemned surrogacy, and in 2024 the European Union added surrogacy to the list of crimes related to human trafficking.
As Dr. Sheela Suryanarayanan said, in 2021, India finally completely banned commercial surrogacy, but gaps in the law still remain. Until then, women from poorer countries were actively brought to India, but not because surrogacy was cheaper in this country, but because surrogate mothers had no rights to the child there. This is the main reason. If you legalize even some kind of surrogacy, it immediately opens the door to all illegal practices and phenomena. In all poor countries, this happens the same way. Customers paid money only when they picked up the child, and also refused if they didn’t like it for some reason. It was complete chaos. There is a case where a 13-year-old girl was kidnapped by traffickers, raped and forced to give birth six times. At that moment, surrogacy was legal, but under its cover, ordinary human trafficking was developing. And after the adoption of the law banning surrogacy, specialists from a private hospital in Delhi for “some reason” left their place and moved to the poorer province of West Bengal. Why there – after the surrogacy ban, women from Nepal were brought to this region, and the local authorities were not up to it because of their own problems. But still, the ban had a certain impact. Indeed, not a single woman was able to escape poverty thanks to the surrogacy fee. Furthermore, there was a stark contrast between the modern, shiny clinics and the barracks where surrogate mothers lived, and their reality, for example, of forced, selective abortions if the customers did not like the sex of the fetus. Many children born in this way die, more than in a healthy normal birth. But no one keeps statistics. In this case, mothers don’t have any payment either. This is a biomarket. There is no constitutional right as such to become biological parents, no one can force a more vulnerable person to go through all this to have their genetic child, so surrogacy should be banned.
As for the legislation of Ukraine, as noted by the Minister of Health of Ukraine in 2019–2020 Zoryana Skaletska, regarding surrogacy, we have two pages in the order document of the Ministry of Health and one article in the Family Code. Anyone who works in the public sector knows how many by-laws, orders, and instructions regulate all the nuances of any relationship. In surrogacy in Ukraine, this is not the case – two pages of an order and one article, that’s all. What can be done in Ukraine at this time is to remember that there is law and there is morality. If there are no, people are left alone with the laws of the market, where those who have money and profit can dictate. In Ukraine, there are more or less transparent clinics that maintain some kind of medical registration, but in general there are no registers of surrogacy in the state. There is no question of any informed consent, there is no legal clarity of the processes. There is no responsibility of medical institutions where this happens, there are only contracts with women and huge fines for them. The range of problems is terrible, and most importantly – the unclear status of the child. The woman’s body is treated as an incubator, and the child is not protected by anything at all. The child is chosen, as in a supermarket. “No document speaks of the interests of the child. According to the European Parliament directive of 2011, the use of surrogacy is exploitation, the object of the crime is the will and dignity of the person. Similarly, human dignity is the core of ethics. There is no ethical code in surrogacy practices, there are no ethical statements. The doctor is not responsible for anything in the future. The 1997 Oviedo Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine has not been ratified by Ukraine! There must be no manipulation of a person’s body if it contradicts their dignity. In addition, a person has the right to withdraw informed consent – this is also not the case in surrogacy. Ethical principles regarding the child should be key for doctors, surrogacy practices are an example of dysfunctional law and ethics,” concluded Zoryana Skaletska. According to her, Ukraine has a terrible reputation in this regard; as the head of the Ministry of Health, she proposed changes, but they remained in the draft.
As Maria Dmytrieva added, the only mother a child knows is the woman who carried it. Everywhere there is an opportunity to give a born child to a surrogate mother, but in Ukraine this right is not available. There is already a whole movement of surrogate children in the world, who call for the banning of this inhuman practice as a violation of the rights of the child. Ukraine has already prepared legislation on surrogacy, it is impossible to find out what is written there. The project was discussed only with surrogacy clinics, neither women’s organizations nor children themselves were involved in its development. That is why traffickers hunt Ukrainian women: our legislation allows it.
The topics of discussion are part of Ukraine’s international obligations — in particular, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), UN Security Council Resolution 1325 “Women, Peace, Security”, and are important in the context of adapting Ukrainian legislation to European Union norms and obligations to other international structures. These topics are becoming even more relevant in the context of full-scale war, increasing vulnerability of women, and increasing gender-based violence.
The events of the CSO “Democracy Development Center” are held as part of preparations for the development of a new State Targeted Social Program to Combat Human Trafficking for the period until 2025. We are convinced that hearing the voices of experts from different countries is critically important for the qualitative renewal of Ukrainian policy and taking into account both new challenges and innovations in international laws and norms in response to these challenges.
Video of the online discussion
