Paris, 12 November 2025
Co-operation Unit Gender Equality Division
DGII: Directorate General of Democracy and Human Dignity
Council of Europe
Avenue de l’Europe, F-67075 Strasbourg Cedex, France
Dear Members of the Gender Equality Division,
On behalf of the International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogacy (ICAMS)—a network of 50 member organisations across 17 countries on three continents—we write to express our deep concern about the legislative developments in Ukraine and to call upon the European Parliament to urge the Ukrainian Parliament to reject Draft Law No. 13683 on the “Application of Assisted Reproductive Technologies” (registered by the Ministry of Health on 22 August 2025) and the alternative Draft Law No. 13683‑1 (submitted by MP Olexiy Danutsa on 4 September 2025). These proposals would further institutionalise surrogacy rather than prevent the exploitation of women and children. We respectfully request that the European Parliament encourage Ukraine to ban surrogacy altogether in line with European Union law and international human rights standards.
The reason for this request is threefold:
1. Surrogacy violates women’s rights.
2. Surrogacy violates the rights of the child.
3. Surrogacy constitutes human trafficking.
1. Violation of Women’s Rights
From Exploitation to Dehumanization
A) Violation of Women’s Maternal Rights
In law, the mother who gives birth—the gestational mother—is universally recognized as the legal mother (Mater Semper Certa Est). This principle reflects both juridical and biological realities: childbirth is not merely a mechanical process but a transformative experience that shapes the child’s identity through gestation, maternal-foetal interactions, and nine months of care. This is why, in adoption, to protect the best interests of both child and mother, the other’s consent, where required, must be given only after the birth of the child (HCCH, 1993 – Article 4, §4). Denying the birth mother her legal status violates her fundamental rights. Such practices undermine her dignity and her autonomy, effectively treating her as an object rather than a rights-bearing human being.
Therefore, transfer of a child to another person under the contract directly violates:
➔ Article 51 of the Constitution of Ukraine,
➔ Article 7 of the UN Convention on the Right of the Child, ➔ Article 5, 11, 16 of CEDAW.
B) Abuse of Power and Socio-Economic Vulnerability
The Council of Europe’s Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (CETS No. 197; Article 4) defines trafficking as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of 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”.
However, for the past decade, Ukraine has become one of the world’s main surrogacy hubs, due to social and economic consequences of war. The surrogacy businesses deliberately attract, move, and instrumentalise women in extreme precarity, taking advantage of their vulnerability. Surrogates have reported that such agencies paid them less than $350, while clients were charged between $45,000 and $55,000. The facts therefore align precisely with the definition of trafficking: recruitment and control of vulnerable persons through abuse of power for the purpose of exploitation.
C) Illusion of Consent: A Tool to Legitimize Exploitation
The COE No.197 explicitly states that the consent of the victims is irrelevant when these means are employed (Article 4-b). To be valid, the consent shall be continuous. Is there “consent”, when a surrogate mother can withdraw her consent only before embryo implantation (MP O. Danutsa, “Drafts” Law No. 13683-1, 2025 – Article 11) and only if she reimburses all medical expenses already incurred, a very dissuasive amount for a woman earning €360 per month ? Furthermore, is there consent when some women have undergone forced labour or expedited caesareans, to deliver the “baby on time,” sometimes at the expense of their health or lives ? In Ukrainian surrogacy, this ongoing consent is systematically violated: the surrogate has no control over her body after implantation and remains dependent and coerced, subject to the decisions of commissioning parents and clinics, as underlined in the article 11 of the draft bill No. 13683. The argument of consent is purely an illusion, which serves to justify and legitimize the violence against women and contravene, thus, the Istanbul Convention.
2. Objectification of the Child
From Sale to Abandonment
A) Surrogacy violates the rights of the child
Women are exploited as instruments in surrogacy whereas children are treated as objects of contract, considered only in terms of fulfilling the reproductive ambitions of commissioning parents. The Child becomes an object of contracts that can be sold and consumed. In law, we distinguish a person from an object because a person is a subject of rights, whereas objects of law are things that subjects of rights can access or possess. This distinction guarantees the equality of human beings and prevents slavery. A child is defined as “any person under eighteen years of age” (CETS No. 197, Article 4) and is therefore a subject of rights. As a subject of rights, the child possesses fundamental entitlements, including the right to parents, identity, and stable parentage, as affirmed by the Verona Principles (2021) and by the article 7 and 8 of the UN Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) (1989). Therefore, there is no “right to a child”; no one may claim ownership of a human being.
In surrogacy, a child is promised, conceived and handed over to third parties in exchange for a sum of money or social recognition, as women are made to see themselves as generous, helpful, or altruistic. The surrogacy contract arranges in advance for the child to be assigned to persons other than the woman who carries it. Whether it involves direct payment, compensation or reimbursement of expenses, the transaction remains a sale of a child, as a simple object:
➔ “Contract where transfer of a child is a pre-condition of payment is a form of trafficking children, as children cannot be considered trade goods.” (UNICEF, 2022).
➔ “Sale of children means any act or transaction whereby a child is transferred by any person or group of persons to another for remuneration or any other consideration” (Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, 2002; Article 2) However, article 35 of the CRC (1989) obliges States Parties, Ukraine included, to “prevent the abduction, sale or trafficking of children.” Contrary to adoption, which aims to remedy a vulnerable situation, surrogacy creates such a situation for the child. Adoption safeguards are explicit: a child cannot be transferred to third parties before birth, and any such transfer constitutes the sale of a child (Hague Convention on Protection of Children, 1993). Therefore, the so-called “right to surrogacy” cannot override the child’s fundamental rights. If children are treated as objects, how can this practice be tolerated?
B) Abandonment of Surrogate-Born Children
The contractual logic of surrogacy inevitably leads to a grim and predictable consequence: abandonment. When commissioning parents reject a child because of a disability, the undesirable sex, or simply for being born amid war, the infant is handed over to the state, effectively condemned to orphanages. The COVID-19 pandemic and the 2022 war have only worsened this crisis. Dozens of surrogacy-born children have been found without legal recognition, parents, or nationality. Ukrainian law, which grants intended parents’ full legal status from the moment a contract is signed, provides no protection for unclaimed children, leaving them legally stateless and extremely vulnerable.
3. Surrogacy is Human Trafficking
Directive (EU) 2024/1712, amending Directive 2011/36/EU, explicitly recognises that exploitation of surrogacy is a form of trafficking in human beings when women are coerced or deceived into acting as surrogate mothers. The directive requires Member States to criminalise and punish those who exploit women in surrogacy arrangements and stresses that these forms of exploitation must be addressed in anti‑trafficking law.
By adopting legislation that facilitates and institutionalises surrogacy, Ukraine directly contradicts its commitments to the European Union—specifically clause 3 of subsection e), Section 4.3. of the Roadmap on the Rule of Law—and violates the standards established by Directive 2024/1712. Therefore, Ukraine places itself in breach of its international obligations and in open contradiction with the European legal framework it seeks to join.
No “ethical framework” can mask this reality: surrogacy is, by nature, an exploitation of women’s bodies reduced to biological functions, a transnational uterine market, and thus a form of reproductive slavery under the 1926 Slavery Convention, which defines slavery as “the status or condition of a person over which any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised”. Intended parents exercise a right of use over the surrogate’s body and the “fruits” of her pregnancy.
We respectfully urge the Members of the European Parliament to:
➔ Call on the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to withdraw Draft Laws No. 13683 and No. 13683‑1 and to refrain from adopting any legislation that would further regulate commercial or so‑called altruistic surrogacy.
➔ Encourage Ukraine to introduce a full ban on surrogacy, in line with Directive (EU) 2024/1712, the Istanbul Convention and the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, thereby protecting women from reproductive exploitation and upholding children’s rights.
By taking this stance, the European Parliament will reaffirm the EU’s commitment to human dignity and ensure that Ukraine’s democratic reconstruction aligns with European human rights standards.
Surrogacy is not a harmless medical service; it is a commercial practice that exploits women and treats children as commodities. The only consistent response is abolition, not regulation.
In defence of those whose voices are silenced and with deep respect for the principles of equality and human rights,
Yours sincerely,
International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogacy Motherhood ICASM.