NELFA and its member organisations express deep concern regarding the recent statements and report by Ms. Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, which portray surrogacy as inherently exploitative and incompatible with human rights.
We believe that this one-sided framing is not only inaccurate but also deeply harmful. It erases the real experiences of families formed through surrogacy, silences the voices of children born through such arrangements, and dismisses the women who choose to become surrogates with dignity and agency.
A Flawed and Biased Process
Ms. Alsalem’s upcoming report to the UN General Assembly (A/80/158) was prepared through a process marked by exclusion and bias. Organisations representing families and children born through surrogacy were not consulted. Leading researchers in reproductive health and family studies were misrepresented. Most troublingly, the report appears to have been shaped by predetermined ideological positions rather than by evidence, ethics, or human rights standards.
The Missing Voices
Across Europe, there are thousands of children born through surrogacy who are growing up in loving, stable families. Their well-being, safety, and right to identity deserve respect and protection. Yet in Ms. Alsalem’s approach, these children are treated as political symbols rather than as individuals with rights.
Surrogates themselves, many of whom describe their experience as empowering and grounded in solidarity, are similarly excluded from the conversation. When women’s voices are ignored in the name of protecting women, something has gone fundamentally wrong.
A Call for Evidence-Based and Ethical Dialogue
NELFA supports ethical, regulated, and solidarity-based approaches to surrogacy that protect all parties: the surrogate, the intended parents, and the child. Examples such as Ireland’s Assisted Human Reproduction Act 2024 show that effective regulation can ensure consent, transparency, and equality, while preventing exploitation.
Dismissing surrogacy altogether, instead of discussing how to make it safer and fairer, helps no one. Simplifying complex realities into slogans or moral panic erases families, stigmatizes women, and undermines the credibility of international human rights work.
Upholding Human Rights for All Families
As an organisation committed to the rights and recognition of rainbow families, NELFA urges the UN Human Rights Council to uphold its principles of neutrality, inclusion, and evidence-based policymaking. We call for meaningful dialogue that includes those most affected: children born through surrogacy, their parents, and the surrogates themselves.
Protecting human rights means protecting everyone’s rights—including those of families formed through assisted reproduction.
