Comments on the Report on the different manifestations of violence against women and girls in the context of surrogacy presented by Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences (A/80/158)

We welcome the Special Rapporteur’s initiative to foreground women’s rights in surrogacy, alongside children’s rights, following the recommendations already made by the UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children in her 2018 and 2019 reports. Our organisation – Child Identity Protection (CHIP) – recognises that women’s rights and children’s rights together constitute the key component of the human rights at issue in surrogacy. CHIP’s 2023 briefing note stated  that “given the nature of the relationship between the surrogate mother and a child that she gives birth to, the protection of the child’s human rights is, to a great degree, dependent on the protection of the rights of the surrogate mother herself.”[1] Deprivations of the rights of the child in surrogacy may thus be viewed, in part, as consequences of violating women’s rights. The purpose of this note is to invite the Special Rapporteur to consider the issues set out below that may merit further reflection and/or clarification.

[1] Source : https://www.child-identity.org/childrens-rights-in-surrogacy/