In collaboration with NAIJA FEMINISTS MEDIA, we have addressed a submission to the members of the National Assembly regarding Bill HB 1137, currently at its second reading, which aims to “regulate” surrogacy in Nigeria.
The bill passed the second reading in the House of Representatives in October 2024. It is expected to monitor and mandate the registration of surrogate agencies, making surrogacy legal. It will also prohibit monetary compensation in surrogacy arrangements (“commercial” surrogacy). This means that surrogates would not be paid for their “service”. Hence, carrying a baby without payment (“altruistic” surrogacy) would be the norm.
How Facebook, misinformation, legal loopholes throw Nigerian women into surrogacy ditch – Simbiat Bakare, Sept. 2025.
NFM, NAIJA FEMINISTS MEDIA
ICASM, INTERNATIONAL COALITION FOR THE ABOLITION OF SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD
TO THE HONORABLE MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF NIGERIA
Paris, May 10th 2026,
Subject: HB 1137 – Why Abolition, Not Regulation, Is the Only Protection for Surrogate Mothers
Honorable Members,
HB 1137, currently in second reading, proposes to regulate surrogacy in Nigeria. Naija Feminists Media (NFM) and The International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood (ICASM) respectfully submit that regulation, even with good intentions, creates the legal framework enabling systematic exploitation of women.
THE INTERNATIONAL LESSON IS ESTABLISHED
India (2002–2015): An “exemplary regulatory framework” produced the “baby farms” documented in Anand and Jaipur. Conclusion: prohibition in 2015.
Thailand (2011–2015): Regulated framework. Result: exploitation of Burmese, Cambodian, and Laotian women. Prohibition in 2015.
Cambodia (2016): “Commercial regulation” → documented trafficking. Prohibition enacted.
Every country that chose regulation discovered that creating a legal market creates demand, and with it, economic pressure on the most vulnerable women to “supply.”
RECENT REPRODUCTIVE TRAFFICKING CASES DOCUMENT THE REALITY
Crete (2024–2025): Mediterranean Fertility Institute facilitated surrogacy and oocyte extraction for 98 women, many trafficked from Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe. Georgian authorities documented Chinese crime syndicates trafficking Thai women for forced egg extraction (January– February 2026). Ukraine continues to operate as a major surrogacy hub despite documented trafficking. These are not historical cases. These are happening now, in regulated or semi-regulated jurisdictions. When commercial frameworks exist, trafficking follows.
What HB 1137 fails to recognize: regulation does not prevent trafficking. It creates infrastructure for trafficking.
HB 1137 FAILS TO PROTECT
- Structural Economic Imbalance: 97% of surrogacy contracts reflect economic imbalance (Bromfield & Rotabi, 2012). HB 1137 does not eliminate this reality; it institutionalizes it.
- Psychological Sequelae: 67% of surrogate mothers report psychological harm (Jadva et al., 2003, replicated 2021). This is not a regrettable side effect; it is the predictable outcome of commodifying women’s reproduction: no framework can regulate away harm that is structural to the practice itself.
- Absence of Post-Partum Care: Surrogacy contracts provide no mandate for psychological or medical follow-up after birth. Low-income women who become surrogate mothers cannot afford private care.
OOCYTE EXTRACTION: RACIALIZED AND EUGENIC EXPLOITATION
HB 1137 does not explicitly address oocyte (egg) donation. This is a critical gap. The surrogacy industry systematically extracts eggs from low-income women in the Global South, particularly Black African, South Asian, and Southeast Asian women, to serve wealthy clients in the Global North. This is reproductive eugenics. In 2024–2025, documented cases of egg “farms” in Crete, Georgia, and Ukraine show women isolated, medically coerced, and underpaid for egg extraction. The same networks that traffic women for surrogacy traffic them for eggs. When Nigeria legalizes surrogacy, it creates a market. When markets exist, egg brokers arrive. Nigerian women become inventory.
THE QUESTION OF WHO IS WRITING THIS BILL AND WHY
Hon. Ayodeji Alao-Akala, the House of Representatives member sponsoring the 2024 National Surrogacy Regulatory Commission Bill, stated publicly that the bill is “especially personal to me, and my dearest wife, and many other parents whose children are the result of surrogacy”. A legislator who has personally benefited from the practice he is now proposing to regulate is not a neutral arbiter of the public interest. He is a stakeholder. The bill has already passed a second reading in the House of Representatives. This is not an accusation of corruption, it is an observation about structural conflict of interest that any credible legislative process is obliged to address: when those who stand to gain from an industry are the same people designing the rules that govern it, the resulting framework will protect the industry, not the women it exploits.
This is not unique to Nigeria: every pro-regulation surrogacy bill globally is sponsored by legislators with personal surrogacy interests, or backed by fertility industry lobbying.
NFM and ICASM are asking Honourable Members to notice: whose interests does this bill serve?
THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT ORIENTATES TOWARD ABOLITION
- Italy (December 2024): criminalized surrogacy as human trafficking, including for citizens engaging in surrogacy abroad.
- Slovakia (2025): constitutional ban on surrogacy arrangements.
- Chile (2021–ongoing): banned commercial surrogacy; pursuing prohibition of all forms.
- • Estonia (2024): Strengthened restrictions on surrogacy; moving toward a full ban.
- • EU Directive 2024/1712 (transposition deadline July 15, 2026): classifies surrogacy as reproductive exploitation under the Palermo Protocol framework.
- Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children (Report A/ 80/158, October 2025): recommends abolition, not regulation.
This movement does not originate from the North imposing its morality. It comes from women who have experienced reproductive exploitation and feminists who ask: why legalise what we did not choose, but which poverty imposed upon us? Consent is not consent when poverty mandates it. Regulations that legalise coercion under the guise of choice protect the industry, not the women.
WHAT ABOLITION OFFERS
An abolitionist law does not punish women. It prosecutes exploiters (clinics, agencies, clients) and holds them criminally liable.
Nigeria can draw from the Italian model: criminalise transboundary surrogacy, integrate it within existing frameworks (trafficking law, Palermo Protocol), and criminalise Nigerian citizens who exploit Nigerian women for foreign clients. Abolition protects.
Regulation offers only the illusion of protection. Abolition protects through criminal accountability.
NFM and ICASM stand ready to provide parliamentary testimony, comparative legal analysis, or to support your legislative teams.
International Coalition for the Abolition of Surrogate Motherhood, ICASM
abolition-ms.org