67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67)
Date: 7/3, 2023 – 9:00 10:30 NY time
Venue: Svenska Kyrkan – Swedish Church – 5 East 48th Street, – New York, NY-10017, US
accessible via zoom : register click HERE
When it comes to reproduction, the women’s point of view must come first. This must be the case when dealing with surrogacy motherhood.
The reproductive surrogacy is the practice of recruiting a woman, whether for remuneration or not, to bear one or more children, whether or not conceived with her own oocytes, for the purpose of handing them over to a person or persons who wish to be assigned as parents of those children. Often, it is presented from the point of view of the beneficiaries, and especially as a private matter. But far from being just an individual act, this social practice is orchestrated by human reproduction companies in an organized production system involving laboratories, doctors, lawyers, agencies, etc. This system needs women as means of production, so that pregnancy and childbirth become a functional process that has a use value and a commercial value and is part of the globalization of human body markets.
Even if the practice violates human rights, many states are under pressure to regulate it. The interests of women and children are addressed only to serve as a guarantee for the commissioning persons, never for themselves. The commodification and exploitation issues are barely mentioned, in favor of neoliberal discourses.
The analysis of cross-border situations and the realities experienced by women in several countries and continents fully demonstrate that the reproductive surrogacy is a violence against women, which exploits the inequalities that women suffer all over the world. Migrant women, rural women, women from racial and ethnic minorities are even more exposed to this neoliberal market of human beings.
Market interests should not take precedence over women’s lives and health. This is why we are sounding the alarm against the reproductive surrogacy and the regulatory approaches.
About the panellists
Ana-Luana Stoicea-Deram – France – ICASM
Surrogacy a violence against women
Ana-Luana Stoicea-Deram (France) teaches social policy in a social work institut in France. She contributed to the book “Les Marchés de la maternité” (Odile Jacob, 2021), She coordinated the book “Ventres à louer, une critique féministe de la GPA” (L’Echappée 2022) and the thematic dossier “What is Surrogacy for (East-European) Feminism?” ( Analize, Journal for Gender and Feminism Studies 2016). She co-founded and co-chairs the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogacy (ICASM).
Clemence Trilling – Canada – ICASM & WDI
ICASM a worldwide organisation for the abolition of surrogate Motherhood
Clemence Trilling is an individual member of WDI and ICASM involved in the fight against legalisation of surrogacy in Quebec. ICASM is an International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood, a federation of feminist and human rights organisations. It brings together 40 organisations from 13 countries: Japan, Australia, South Korea, Ukraine, Romania, Canada, Sweden, Belgium, UK, Austria, Italy, Spain and France.
Taina Bien-Aimé – USA – CATW
What Surrogate mother teaches us. The legalisation of commercial surrogacy acrross the United States
Taina Bien-Aimé has dedicated her career as a legal activist to the fight against violence and discrimination against women. She is a founding member of Equality Now, an international human rights organisation, and is currently the Director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.
Chiara Parolin – Italy – ENOMW
Migrant women and reproductive exploitation in the surrogacy
Chiara Parolin is a co-chair of ENOMV (Belgium) European network of migrant women is a member of ICASM. It is a migrant-women-led feminist, secular, non-partisan platform that advocates for the rights, freedoms and dignity of migrant, refugee and ethnic minority women and girls in Europe. Together with ICASM, it issued a study on Migrant women and surrogacy in 2022.
Maryia Dmytryieva – Ukraine –Democracy Development Center-
Surrogacy In Ukraine
Maryia Dmytryieva, radical feminist and human rights activist in Ukraine, member of the Democracy Development Center (Ukraine). She has been advocating against surrogacy for the last 5 years and followed the scandal of babies born from surrogate mothers, stranded in Ukraine during the spring 2020 lockdown.
This event is the first conference of a whole day event on Surrogay, Pornography, Prostitution
