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 United Nations bodies have already characterized surrogacy as the sale of children, including the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children in 2018 and the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2019.”

Furthermore, in her July 2025 report, the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls called for the eradication of all forms of surrogacy and the adoption of a binding international instrument to abolish this practice. Finally, a June 22 joint statement by states calls for a moratorium with a view to the universal abolition of surrogacy.

In their statement, the Casablanca Group of Experts and Juristes Pour l’Enfance also called on Schwarz to urge states to put an end to this practice within their territories and to commit to its universal abolition.

The Catholic Church also condemns the practice of surrogacy.

In his 2024 address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis described the practice of so-called surrogacy as “deplorable,” noting that it is “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs. A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.”

The Holy Father urged the international community “to prohibit this practice universally,” as “human life must be preserved and defended” at every stage of its existence.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.