FAFCE: surrogacy included by EU Parliament in the list of human-trafficking offences. “Exploitation of poorer women for the purposes of providing a child to richer couples”

“Surrogacy indeed entails the commodification of women’s body for reproductive purposes and the selling of children”, FAFCE said in its statement today, after the European Parliament’s Committees had included this practice in the list of human-trafficking offences. “Even when the surrogate mother consents to the commodification of her body and reproductive functions, the consent is biased and thus void”. In 2021, the European Parliament stated that the “sexual exploitation for surrogacy and reproductive purposes […] is unacceptable and a violation of human dignity and human rights”. “Indeed, according to Article 2 of the 2011 Directive, as modified by the current review, human trafficking involves”, FAFCE explained, “the recruitment […] of persons, including the exchange or transfer of control over those persons, by means of […] the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation”. “In practice, surrogacy generally means the exploitation of poorer women for the purposes of providing a child to richer couples. Surrogate mothers are often in situations of vulnerability, facing economic difficulties, and come to sell their body and their reproductive functions in order to support themselves and their family”. The statement ends as follows: “Our Federation therefore welcomes the inclusion of surrogacy as a situation of human trafficking in its review of the 2011 Directive”.
Gianni Borsa