UN asked to recognize surrogate motherhood as a new form of slavery

The Casablanca group of experts and the French nongovernmental organization Juristes Pour l’Enfance (Legal Professionals for Children) have asked the United Nations to officially recognize surrogacy as “a new form of slavery involving women and children.”

The request was submitted to the U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and human trafficking, Katarina Schwarz , to mark the centennial of the 1926 Slavery Convention and the upcoming Human Rights Council session dedicated to the occasion, “the agenda of which includes, among other issues, new forms of slavery.”

The request is based on the argument that surrogacy reduces the child in utero to an object of disposal, which corresponds to the definition of slavery set forth in the 1926 Geneva Convention, namely, the exercise of the attributes of the right of ownership.

In the case of the woman carrying the baby, her body is subjected to the will of third parties, which includes control over her diet and medical care as well as, potentially, embryo reduction or abortion, the statement explains.

The Casablanca Declaration experts and Juristes Pour l’Enfance point out that "at the international level, several…