98 children have been born via surrogacy arrangements in Ukraine to Irish residents since January 2022, the Department of Foreign Affairs has revealed.
The information was released to Senator Sharon Keogan this week, with a Freedom of Information response revealing that 98 Emergency Travel Certificates (ETC) were issued to children born in Ukraine to surrogate mothers.
In the letter, the Department said: “Please note that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has advised against all travel to Ukraine, for any purpose, since 12 February 2022. The travel advice also states that the Department strongly advises against commissioning surrogacy arrangements in Ukraine.”
Ukraine is estimated to account for more than a quarter of global surrogacies, or more than 2,000 babies a year. The largest commercial surrogacy agency in the world is located in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. The county’s surrogacy industry has continued to operate as normal despite the war.
32 children born as a result of surrogacy arrangements in Ukraine were issued an ETC in 2022, followed by 33 in 2023, a further 25 in 2024, and eight so far this year. Commercial surrogacy – where a woman receives a fee for giving birth – is legal in a handful of countries in the world, including in Ukraine. Following restrictions placed on surrogacy markets in Thailand, Nepal and India, global demand has been directed towards Ukraine, where there is less regulation of the process and where it is cheaper.
Prior to the war in Ukraine, it was estimated that one baby per week was born in Ukraine to Irish couples at a cost of €40,000 to €65,000 each.
Speaking in the Seanad on Wednesday, Senator Sharon Keogan said that she had sought the information for three years, as she blasted the “exploitation” of “some of the most vulnerable women on earth.”
“Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, I’ve been making repeated Freedom of Information Requests to the Department of Foreign Affairs. After three years, I have learned that from January 2022 until today, 98 emergency travel certificates have been issued to children born in Ukraine as a result of surrogacy arrangements,” Senator Keogan said.
“Despite assurances from the Government that new legislation would enforce ethical standards and curb exploitative practices on commercial surrogacy, some of the most vulnerable women on earth – Ukrainian women – are still being taken advantage of at the same rate as before. While we do not know the specifics, common sense dictates that some of these cases in war-torn, corrupt, and impoverished countries can hardly be anything other than exploitation,” the Senator added.
“How can this be anything other than a case of women being forced to rent out their wombs in desperation as bombs are falling around them? That is, if commercial surrogacy can ever be non-exploitative and unethical in the first place. We certainly don’t think it is in Ireland – we ban commercial surrogacy in Ireland, we protect Irish women from being exploited, and protect people from exploiting them.
“But then we think it is fine for our people to rent the wombs of women in other countries – in war-ravaged countries. It is beyond me how our Government can find this even remotely acceptable, and allow this outrageous exploitation to continue.’
Speaking to the Irish Independent recently, a legal advisor at BioTexCom, the world’s largest surrogacy agency located in Ukraine, said that it was “logistics rather than safety concerns” clients were concerned with.
“When we speak to couples they are much more concerned about the fact that it takes two days to get here at the moment rather than the missiles and drones flying all over Kyiv,” Denis Herman, a legal adviser to the agency told the newspaper this month.
Last July, new surrogacy legislation was signed into law in Ireland – the (Assisted Human Reproduction) Act 2024 – which was criticised as “basically legalising the buying of babies.”
Previously under Irish law, babies born through surrogacy were not automatically recognised as the children of the women who were raising them. While commercial surrogacy remains illegal in Ireland, the law does not prevent Irish adults from paying a woman to be their surrogate in a country where the practice is legal.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) previously warned that the commercial surrogacy industry in many countries is rife with human rights abuses.