When the Labor Government Aids and Abets Child Trafficking, Slavery, and Exploitation
The Labor government will be wishing to ram through the NSW Equality Bill this week, and in so doing they will supporting practices that are illegal world-wide.
At the heart of Greenwich’s Equality Bill is the promotion of business over human rights. For all the recent talk of "protecting sex workers," repealing the law on living off the earnings of prostitution allows pimps and others to exploit prostitutes financially without consequence. It will also embolden third-party profiteers, increasing exploitation and trafficking risks. Repealing "causing or inducing prostitution" will allow people to coerce or manipulate women into prostitution, increasing the risk of human trafficking, exploitation, and forced sex work.
But nothing highlights the profit-over-humanity nature of this bill more than the government's enabling of human trafficking embedded in the billion-dollar surrogacy industry.
Advocates present commercial surrogacy as a compassionate solution for infertility, but women and children are commodified in a transactional process driven by profit.
Here are the core issues:
Surplus Babies and Trafficking: In countries like India and Thailand, doctors implant multiple embryos to increase pregnancy success rates. Unwanted or "surplus" babies are sold on the black market or trafficked for forced labor, sexual exploitation, or organ removal, without the commissioning parents' knowledge.
Human Trafficking and Genetic Material: In 2023, a surrogacy clinic on the Greek island of Crete was convicted of human trafficking involving surrogacy and egg harvesting. The clinic, recommended by Australian fertility law specialist Stephen Page and Growing Families founder Sam Everingham, trafficked 182 women and children, with around 60 Australian couples involved. This case reveals the criminal underbelly of the surrogacy industry, where even genetic material becomes part of the trafficking network.
Coercion into Abortion or Selective Reduction: Surrogates can be forced to abort or selectively reduce fetuses (in cases of multiple pregnancies) to meet the commissioning parents' demands. Surrogates like Brittney Rose Torres and Melissa Cook were coerced into terminating one of the babies they carried under threat of legal action. This demonstrates the prioritization of contractual obligations over human lives, forcing women to engage in actions they find deeply repugnant.
High-Risk Pregnancies and Deaths: Surrogacy poses significant health risks for surrogate mothers, including gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, and premature labor. Some have tragically died due to complications, including Brooke Browne, Crystal Wilhite, and Michelle Reaves. Their stories underscore the severe risks surrogates face, with their lives often deemed secondary to the intended parents' needs.
Women as "Wombs for Rent": Surrogate mothers endure invasive medical procedures, strict contractual control over their daily lives, and the risks of pregnancy complications, all while being reduced to mere vessels in a commercial transaction. Their autonomy is overridden by the demands of the intended parents.
Commercial Surrogacy as a Transaction: At its core, surrogacy operates as a business. Both surrogate mothers and children are commodified, with the interests of the intended parents taking priority over the well-being of those involved. Surrogates are left with long-term health and psychological impacts, while the child becomes a product exchanged at birth.
Egg Donation and Legal Separation: Surrogacy arrangements often involve egg donors to separate the roles of genetic mother and surrogate, stripping both women of parental rights. The law deliberately distances them from the child, ensuring a clean transaction for the commissioning parents.
Rejection of "Undesirable" Children: Children born through surrogacy are rejected if they do not meet the intended parents' expectations. In the infamous Baby Gammy case, a child born with Down syndrome was abandoned in Thailand by his Australian intended parents, who deemed him "unacceptable." This reveals how children can be discarded if they fail to conform to the buyer's standards.
War Zone Abandonments: In Ukraine, 50% of children born through surrogacy were left abandoned in orphanages as the war disrupted the surrogacy "supply chain." Commissioning parents, unable to retrieve their babies, left them behind, underscoring the cold, transactional nature of the process, where children are treated as logistics in a supply chain.
Global Exploitation: The surrogacy industry predominantly exploits women from impoverished regions such as India and Thailand. Women are recruited from poor areas, made to sign contracts they don’t understand, and forced to live in surrogacy facilities far from home for months or years. Their pregnancies are often controlled through forced Caesarean sections to maximize the number of births doctors can handle daily.
Infant Commodification: Children born through surrogacy are treated as products, created to order, and handed over to the commissioning parents upon birth. The natural maternal bond is severed immediately, reducing the child to a purchased good, devoid of connection to the woman who's body made and carried them. Commercial surrogacy commodifies both mothers and children, turning them into elements of a business transaction.
The children created through these processes, rather than being celebrated as the "gift of life," are treated as products, subject to the desires of those paying for their creation. Meanwhile, surrogate mothers face severe exploitation, health risks, and a lack of legal protection.
In the surrogacy industry, profit prevails at the expense of human dignity.
References are here: https://tinyurl.com/SurrogacyIsTrafficking…