New York, August 25th, 2025 – The World Youth Alliance (WYA) welcomes the publication of the report of the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Ms. Reem Alsalem titled, “The different manifestations of violence against women and girls in the context of surrogacy” (A/80/158), which exposes the grave human rights violations inherent in the practice of surrogacy and calls for stronger international measures to protect women and children.
Earlier this year, WYA submitted a detailed report to the Special Rapporteur (read more about it here), urging recognition of surrogacy as an emerging form of exploitation that commodifies women and violates the rights of children. WYA’s submission highlighted how surrogacy, both commercial and so-called “altruistic,” imposes serious health risks on women, coerces vulnerable populations, and deprives children of their right to identity and parental care.
Following the written submission, WYA’s Director of Policy and Research, Mislav Barišić, was invited and participated in a lengthy, in-depth expert online consultation with the Special Rapporteur, Ms. Alsalem and her team, on June 16th. He had a chance to personally explain WYA’s concrete policy proposals including the need for international recognition of the harms and human rights violations surrogacy entails, particularly for women and children. With this purpose, WYA’s submission called for criminalizing cross-border surrogacy tourism, supporting the vulnerable women often targeted to be surrogates, and investing in women’s reproductive health programs, like FEMM, that address the hormonal disorders that often cause infertility.
The Special Rapporteur’s report that was just published and is due to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly in October echoes these concerns, describing surrogacy as a global industry “almost invariably commercial in nature” that reduces women to “service providers” and exploits their reproductive capacity.
The report details many harmful aspects of surrogacy and warns that this practice undermines women’s dignity as it “entails the direct and exploitative use of a woman’s bodily and reproductive functions for the benefit of others” and often results in long-lasting harm. Children’s rights are also violated as infants born through surrogacy experience “immediate separation from the woman who carried them,” leaving them at-risk of psychological harm, statelessness, and identity loss. In fact, it openly designates commercial surrogacy “which accounts for the overwhelming majority of surrogacy cases globally, [as] constitut[ing] the sale of children, which is a crime.”
These findings strongly affirm the points raised by WYA. In its submission, WYA noted that even so-called altruistic surrogacy arrangements subject women to coercion, emotional manipulation, and loss of autonomy, while depriving children of their right to be cared for by their mothers.
“[We] are encouraged to see the UN Special Rapporteur recognize what young people worldwide have long affirmed: surrogacy, in all its forms, is incompatible with human dignity,” said Mislav Barišić, WYA Director of Policy and Research. “This report confirms that the rights of women and children must come before the demands of the global surrogacy industry.”
WYA commends the Special Rapporteur’s call for urgent action, including global abolition and stronger prohibitions on the national level, international accountability, and protection measures for vulnerable women. As WYA announced in May, expecting that this report might “serve as a catalyst for international dialogue and cooperation, laying the groundwork for a future international legal framework to prohibit surrogacy, especially commercial and transnational arrangements,” we now have very concrete recommendations laid out by the Special Rapporteur.
These recommendations include the call to Member States: to eradicate surrogacy in all its forms, meaning both commercial and “altruistic” surrogacy; to prohibit the practice of surrogacy at the international level by working towards a binding international treaty to universally abolish surrogacy; to harmonize laws and hold surrogacy agencies, intermediaries, and others that profit from or facilitate surrogacy arrangements accountable, including through criminal sanctions; to oppose the recognition of surrogacy arrangements, including those undertaken abroad; to protect the rights of children born through surrogacy, including to identity, nationality, and to know and be cared for by their parents; and to help the women being harmed by the practice by means such as free or low-cost legal aid, psychosocial support, and financial assistance, including for surrogate women who choose to keep the child after birth.
As WYA concluded in its submission: “Surrogacy in any form, commercial or altruistic, constitutes a violation of women’s dignity, bodily autonomy, and fundamental rights, and must be recognized as such in international human rights discourse.” This report is a very welcome step in the right direction.
(The Submission to the Special Rapporteur was based on the World Youth Alliance White Paper on Surrogacy. If you want to learn more about the topic, you can access it here.)
