The different manifestations of violence against women and girls in the context of surrogacy 3/

 B. State policies

 8. There are primarily three regulatory models governing surrogacy: (a) explicit prohibition; (b) regulation and recognition, either full or limited to altruistic arrangements; and (c) unregulated, often resulting in legal ambiguity. Prohibition, adopted predominantly in some Western European countries, entails criminal sanctions at least for organizing or advertising surrogacy arrangements, although their prohibitions and enforcement vary significantly. In practice, as observed in Germany, surrogacy and related services, including egg donation, are reportedly still promo ted at public events without legal consequences. 19 By contrast, Italy passed legislation in 2024 designating surrogacy as a “universal crime” that exposes Italian citizens to prosecution for engaging in surrogacy abroad. 20 Typically, however, prohibition is combined with the recognition of the filiation of children to intended parents after birth, if found to be in the child’s best interests. 

9. Some countries, like Australia and India, adopt regulatory frameworks that permit only altruistic surrogacy. Others, such as Georgia, Israel, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, permit commercial surrogacy, although the Russian Federation recently prohibited international surrogacy.21 The majority of States do not regulate surrogacy or are silent on it. Surrogacy may therefore be tolerated in practice, even where legal recognition of parentage may be lacking. 

10. Enforcement and oversight mechanisms for surrogacy arrangements and the role of intermediaries are frequently weak or non-existent.22 Differing legal standards, as well as the lack of mutual recognition of parentage and contracts across jurisdictions, make the resolution of related disputes complex. Even when contracts designate parents, national authorities may refuse to register foreign birth certificates. 

11. Courts have also adopted different positions on the legality of surrogacy. For instance, the Supreme Court of Spain has held that article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights) does not establish a “right” to become a parent by surrogacy23 and, in another decision, found that surrogacy contracts “violate the dignity and the free development” of both the surrogate and her child by treating them as “mere objects” – with the Court declining to recognize a surrogacy judgment. By contrast, in October 2024, the highest court of France reportedly upheld the recognition of a United States surrogacy order.24

19 Submission by “Lasst Frauen Sprechen!”.

 20 See https://www.senato.it/leggi-e-documenti/disegni-di-legge/scheda-ddl?did=57364. 

21 See https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/29/up-to-1000-babies-born-to-surrogatemothers-stranded-in-russia. 

22 Yingyi Luo, “Unravelling informality and precarity: new labour law strategies for the global reproduction network of cross-border surrogacy”, Asian Bioethics Review, vol. 16 (2024). 

23 European Association of Private International Law, “The Spanish supreme court on surrogacy contract and public policy”, 27 January 2025. 

24 See https://eapil.org/2024/10/08/french-supreme-court-rules-foreign-surrogacy-requires-noadaptation/.