Women have the right to safety, dignity and to be considered as full human beings. The International Day of Action for Women’s Rights reminds us of this. And today, these rights are still not guaranteed.
As a feminist organisation fighting for the abolition of surrogate motherhood, ICAMS is confronted daily with the reality of human trafficking and the violence suffered by women around the world who are used as raw material in the industry of reproductive exploitation and the sale of their children. Recently in Georgia, hundreds of women recruited from Uganda, Thailand, Turkey, Russia and Kazakhstan were kept in ‘egg farms’ to produce newborns on demand. In Argentina, wealthy Europeans resort to surrogate motherhood, sometimes abandoning children who do not meet their requirements, as in the case of the premature baby rejected by the French commissioning woman. In Greece, a member state of the European Union, trafficking in women for reproductive exploitation thrives, even though the practice is legal there in a supposedly altruistic form.
Legal, regulated, supposedly ethical or altruistic, as recently in Ireland and Denmark, these terms are used to reassure and guarantee the interests of wealthy and unscrupulous commissioning people. The stories unfolding before our eyes never seem to cross the threshold of public consciousness.
Who among politicians is on the side of women? Too few. Most of them, out of indifference or ignorance of the reality of this globalised market and its practices, fall into the trap of sympathy for those who buy children and ignore the surrogate mothers who risk their lives and health to do so.
Hearing the truth about surrogate motherhood is certainly uncomfortable, but taking action is fundamental and requires political courage. It’s much easier to subscribe to idyllic accounts of the desire for children than to face the reality of women of women being used as instruments, reduced to the status of producers of human beings on commission. Are we going to allow women and children to be bought, sold or given away as dehumanised objects?
Do policy makers really represent the interests of women and girls, or are they allies of the patriarchal system out of convenience, ignorance or complicity?
Reproductive exploitation is a fundamental political issue. We will never accept the normalisation of the exploitation of women’s bodies and the sale of our children. It is time to say ‘enough is enough’.
On 8 March, International Women’s Rights Day, we call on society as a whole to take action to end surrogacy and guarantee the rights of women and girls around the world.
Ana-Luana Stoicea-Deram Marie Josèphe Devillers Berta O. Garcia
Co-presidents of the Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood
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