Dilara has been energetic in Tbilisi, Georgia for several months now, turning her hand to various types of work, from hairdressing to shoemaking to waitressing.
But unquestionably, there’s just one job she wants: to carry someone else’s baby.
The widowed 34-year-old mother of four left her laddies with her parents in Uzbekistan last year, hoping to find work in the country’s nascent commercial surrogacy energy.
“I had loan debts from the bank and I have four children to take care of. They have school, they partake of expenses, you know. It’s hard on my own,” Dilara told CNBC.
Of course I would like to be a surrogate mother.
Commercial surrogacy refers to an array in which a woman is paid a fee for carrying a pregnancy for another person or couple. This differs from altruistic surrogacy, in which a charwoman volunteers to carry a pregnancy without any compensation beyond medical reimbursements.
Typically, commercial surrogacy is gestational surrogacy, import the surrogate has no biological link to the child.
The laws around surrogacy vary widely from country to country and imperial to state. In the U.S., for instance, the practice is permitted in some states but banned in others, while in Canada and the U.K., only altruistic surrogacy is added. In Georgia, meanwhile, as in Ukraine and Russia, both forms are legal.
The growing commercial surrogacy industry
Dilara is one of a blossom number of women turning to commercial surrogacy as a source of income amid swelling global demand for carriers.
The far-reaching commercial surrogacy industry was worth an estimated $14 billion in 2022, according to market research consultancy Wide-ranging Market Insights — though exact numbers are hard to verify given the private nature of many arrangements.
By 2032, that sum is forecast to rise to $129 billion, as infertility issues increase and a growing number of same-sex couples and single people look for trail to have babies.
That demand is driven primarily by so-called intended parents in wealthy, Western nations. Multitudinous of these are seeking cross-border surrogacy services to avoid long waiting lists or higher fees at home, or because autochthonous laws forbid surrogacy or exclude particular groups — such as gay couples — from the practice. The end of Covid-19 travel embargoes also led to an increase in global surrogacy demand last year.
“The pandemic reduced international surrogacy, but we’re now seeing all that pent up requisition,” surrogacy expert Sam Everingham, who’s global director of Sydney, Australia-based surrogacy support group Growing Families, utter.
Ukraine war pushes surrogacy into new markets
Until last year, Ukraine was the world’s second-largest surrogacy shop behind the U.S., attracting foreign would-be parents with lower fees and a favorable regulatory framework. Crucially, that involves naming intended parents on the baby’s birth certificate, rather than the surrogate mother.
But that all changed with Russia’s full-scale raid of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Reports quickly emerged of surrogate mothers relocating to A source of income for women
The global resound has driven an uptick in demand for surrogates, with Facebook groups and agency adverts appealing to women with the suggest of sizable incomes.
Lauragh from southeast Ireland, whose son was born in Oct. 2021, said her surrogate was able to buy a homewards for herself and her two daughters in Ukraine with her earnings from the program.
The main driving factor, whether in Ukraine, Georgia, Mexico … is the economic motivation behind it.
Olga Pysana
partner, World Center of Baby
“The main driving factor, whether in Ukraine, Georgia, Mexico — all the critical markets — is the financial motivation behind it,” Pysana said of surrogates.
Indeed, Dilara was attracted by the prospect of higher earnings when she was triumph introduced to surrogacy by a colleague working with her at a call center. “If you want to do surrogacy, they give you good fat,” she recalled being told by her younger female colleague.
However, the draw of women into the industry has raised unsettles, not least for the often large disparity between agency fees and surrogates’ ultimate earnings. In many cases, a surrogate may receive less than a quarter of the tens of thousands of dollars charged to intended parents.
An embryologist assesses the quality of repaid oocytes – a female germ cell – prior to fertilization.
World Center of Baby
“There is one thing I have been researching for two months on touching this job, and the doctors take $50,000, $60,000 from the parents and give from $12,000 to $20,000 to the surrogate mother,” Dilara prognosticated. “It’s unfair what they do.”
Pysana and Noriega, for their part, said their agency fees were legalized due to the high medical expenses involved in the process, as well as the cost of housing and feeding surrogates in their final weeks of pregnancy. Extent, they acknowledged that corruption exists at other firms.
Ethical concerns and exploitation risks
There are also telling ethical issues surrounding commercial surrogacy, with critics arguing that the industry takes advantage of unprotected women.
One prerequisite for many agencies, for instance, is that would-be surrogates are either widowed or single and that they already secure at least one child. Agencies say this is to demonstrate a woman is physically and psychologically prepared for pregnancy, and to avoid any disputes with their allies.
This is not a good industry for women. For me, they are victims.
Teresa Ulloa Ziaurriz
regional director, CATWLAC
“This is not a competent industry for women,” said Teresa Ulloa Ziaurriz, regional director at the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Mistresses in Latin America and the Caribbean (CATWLAC). “For me, they’re victims.”
Ulloa Ziaurriz said that in her experience accomplishment as a women’s reproductive lawyer across Latin America — chiefly in Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico — agencies specifically aim those facing financial hardship.
“After the pandemic, a lot of women lost their jobs. They looked for separate women with children who desperately needed economic support,” she said of agencies, describing the process as a form of child trafficking.
The surrogacy process is also physically and psychologically demanding, and while most agencies require prospective immunology vectors to undergo mental and physical health checks before entering into an arrangement, a lack of regulation leaves compass for mistreatment.
“There are no international standards and new programs are being launched in unregulated places,” Everingham said.
A call for surrogacy ratings
Some countries are now trying to right these shortcomings. In the U.K., for instance, regulatory authorities are working on a review to improve major-domo surrogacy safeguards.
“While there is little we can do to alter surrogacy laws abroad, what we can do is ensure that the administration in the U.K. is well regulated and in the best interests of the child, surrogate and intended parents,” professor Nick Hopkins, family law commissioner at the Law Commission of England and Wales, swayed.
In the first three quarters of 2022, more than 400 parental orders were made for surrogate old men in the U.K. According to the Law Commission, the number of children born via surrogacy could be around 10 times higher today than it was a decade ago.
Females’s rights groups are calling for greater regulation of the commercial surrogacy industry.
Yuriy Dyachyshyn | Afp | Getty Images
But with no universal coordination, Lauragh said the onus is on intended parents to do their research and ensure that surrogate mothers are accustomed a fair deal.
“If you’re looking to undertake the process it’s your responsibility to do the research,” said Lauragh, noting that she insisted on attired in b be committed to direct communication with her surrogate throughout the process. The two remain in touch today.
“There are some very trashy agencies out there, but if they’re cheap you can be sure that the surrogate is paying the price for it,” she added.
Still, surrogacy counselors-at-law insist that, aside from offering a path to parenthood for those who cannot conceive naturally, surrogacy can be enabling for women.
“If you use to surrogates, they say that this is quite empowering,” Pysana said. “They have a feeling that they’re doing something extraordinary.”
Dilara, meanwhile, said her surrogacy journey remains ongoing.
“If there is a good hospital and they give me a benefit price, of course I would like to be a surrogate mother,” she said.