PRESS RELEASE
Paris, August 30, 2021
ALERT SURROGACY:
FRANCE COMPLICIT IN THE EXPLOITATION OF WOMEN AND THE SALE OF CHILDREN
On 4 and 5 September 2021, in Paris, the “Désir d’enfant” trade fair will be held. Its stated aim is to provide information on the various possibilities of becoming parents.
Surrogacy is one of the options offered, although this practice is not legal in France.
Surrogacy is an illegal practice, sanctioned by French law (art. 16-7 Civil Code, art. 227-12 Penal Code). As it is impossible for French people to resort to it in France, some of them go to foreign clinics. This gives rise to a phenomenon known as “procreative tourism”. In order to bypass progressive French legislation, these people have their child “produced” abroad. They use a surrogate mother who will receive financial compensation or not, depending on the country, to carry a child at the risk of her own life, in order to hand it over to the so-called commissioning parents.
The practice is forbidden in France, as in most European countries, it violates the human dignity of both the surrogate mothers, instrumentalised for the benefit of third parties, and the children, whose best interests are certainly not to be bought or sold.
CIAMS considers it unacceptable that foreign clinics are allowed to promote surrogacy in France. It is opposed to such events being held in France. In August, CIAMS sent letters to the French Minister of the Interior, the Minister Delegate to the Prime Minister in charge of Equality between Women and Men, Diversity and Equal Opportunities, as well as to the Paris Police Prefect and the Paris Mayor to ask them to ban this event which promotes violence against women and the sale of children. At the time of publishing this press release we have not received any response.
CIAMS is an international organisation that campaigns for the abolition of surrogacy throughout the world. It brings together forty organisations from thirteen countries and three continents, which fight for the defence of women’s rights and/or human rights. It is an organisation based on feminist values, such as equality between women and men, and women’s emancipation. One of the founding member is a lesbian organisation. In our statutes we clearly stand for the equality of homosexual and heterosexual sexualities.