The new laws that could disrupt Ukraine's global surrogacy hub - Global Women, BBC World Service

0:00 Right.

0:11 We just heard an air alarm, which means that all the babies are being taken.

0:18 The basement for safety.

0:25 In a country at war, couples from around the world are

0:29 still coming to have children through surrogacy.

0:35 Is this conflict pressuring vulnerable women to carry a child for someone else?

0:42 If there wasn't a war, I wouldn't have decided to go for surrogacy.

0:48 I am rgoing to do as many surrogate pregnancies as it takes,

0:51 long as it will allow my health.

0:55 This offers Black Friday sale in babies.

1:00 They are not hiding their outright saying

1:03 what they are doing there, selling babies.

1:06 And when deals go wrong, it's those babies who can pay the price.

1:12 Now, a new law could ban surrogacy in Ukraine for foreign parents.

1:18 But would that shut down one of the world's biggest surrogate markets?

1:24 And would it harm the women who depend on it?

1:31 It's a beautiful day, skies are blue,

1:35 sun is shining and we are very excited to meet our baby.

1:41 Elena and Igor have just crossed the border into Ukraine,

1:45 a country battered by four years of war.

1:48 It's very nice outside, quiet.

1:53 Quiet, no bombing.

1:54 No bombing.

1:57 They drove nearly 2,000 kilometres from Macedonia.

2:02 I was so scared to come, like,

2:04 everything that you see on the news, and it's a war.

2:07 We want to be parents, so we're going to do anything to become parents.

2:12 We're going move mountains to be parents.

2:16 This wasn't an easy choice.

2:19 Nine years trying to have a child,

2:21 multiple rounds of IVF and surgeries, surrogacy was their last resort.

2:28 And Ukraine offered something few countries could,

2:32 a legal, well-established and affordable system.

2:36 Even from afar, they tried to be part of the pregnancy.

2:40 Agora!

2:43 But Elena was never pregnant.

2:46 An embryo created from hers and Ego's genetic material was

2:50 implanted into a Ukrainian woman who carried their baby, a surrogate.

2:56 It's like, for example, you're making a muffin recipe.

2:59 You put all the ingredients and you put in another oven to bake.

3:03 Now, after nine months, they're meeting their son for the first time.

3:10 At some time I'm saying, okay, it's really happening, it happened, it is ours,

3:16 it just, you wish for so many years and then it came true.

3:23 It was the best thing that happened in our whole life.

3:33 Elena and Igor are not alone.

3:35 Every year, thousands travel to Ukraine for surrogacy.

3:40 Even when Russia invaded Ukraine,

3:43 the war disrupted the industry, but it didn't stop it.

3:47 We're inside one of the biggest surrogate agencies in the world.

3:51 There are at least 30 surrogate mothers,

3:54 each carrying a baby for a foreign couple.

3:57 For many of them, this has become a lifeline to make a living during the war.

4:03 Hello, nice to meet you.

4:04 This is our treasure.

4:06 This is the most valuable thing.

4:07 This is where we keep all the embryos that we have,

4:10 all the embryos that we use in our programmes and you can have a look.

4:18 So how many embryos do you have?

4:20 We have more than 10,000 embryos here.

4:23 And these are then transferred into surrogates.

4:25 Yes, exactly.

4:27 We are in our basement and we are happy that we

4:30 have the secure place for the embryos to be stored.

4:33 So in case of an attack, this is protected?

4:35 Yeah, yeah.

4:35 Yeah, this is the most protected place in our clinic.

4:45 I'm Karina, I'm 22 years old.

4:48 I'm carrying a child for a Chinese couple.

4:53 When Karina was 17, a Russian attack destroyed her home in Bakhmut,

4:59 leaving her homeless.

5:02 Was there a moment where you realised that you

5:05 needed to find another way to make money?

5:09 Yes, when you count the pennies to go buy bread.

5:12 And we started counting the pennies to really

5:14 feed the child the formula, on nappies.

5:19 And then I started to think that I need to do something.

5:22 Now she's being paid around $17,000 for the pregnancy.

5:27 I know it's not my child.

5:29 I love her, I talk to her, but when she hits me hard, I speak to her.

5:35 The payment was meant to be higher, but one of the babies didn't survive.

5:41 If it wasn't for the war, I wouldn't have gone for surrogacy.

5:47 Critics say stories like Karina's raise difficult questions.

5:53 Surrogacy clinics have been pretty open that they target poor women.

5:58 And with the war going on, the number of poor women is growing.

6:01 Even in the conditions of the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine,

6:07 Ukraine stays one of the major hubs for surrogacy

6:10 because the number of women who are desperate,

6:13 who are destitute, who lost their livelihood, their jobs,

6:16 they want to survive and support their families.

6:19 And surrogate clinics offer them this opportunity because

6:23 Western couples want to buy babies on the cheap.

6:30 Surrogacy clinics don't see it this way.

6:33 They say they offer women a way to earn

6:37 money legally while helping others have a child.

6:41 But this is part of a multi-billion dollar global business.

6:46 Across websites and social media, clinics compete for clients.

6:52 Their marketing can be direct, even aggressive.

6:56 There are choices that demand a woman to be strong.

7:00 There is another choice, no less brave.

7:03 The gift of parenthood.

7:08 Another manipulative tear-jerker.

7:12 This offers Black Friday sale in babies.

7:17 So they are not hiding their outright

7:19 saying what they are doing there, selling babies.

7:26 The transactional aspect of these surrogacy agreements comes with consequences.

7:33 We found that in many cases,

7:35 intended parents are delayed in travelling to Ukraine to collect their newborns.

7:41 Some clinics even set up dedicated baby rooms where a team

7:45 of nurses and nannies look after babies around the clock.

7:51 What's the longest that a baby has

7:54 stayed here before their parents arrived in Ukraine?

8:00 It's can't answer that.

8:02 But you know, don't you?

8:03 Well, yes.

8:06 She can't say?

8:07 You can't tell.

8:08 We can't talk about it.

8:19 So we just heard an air alarm,

8:23 which means that all the babies are being taken to the basement for safety.

8:31 It's in this tense and high-risk environment

8:34 that intended parents sometimes leave their newborns.

8:39 In some cases, it's for months at a time.

8:48 This child was born through a surrogate mother over a month ago,

8:51 but is still not yet being collected.

8:57 How often are babies born through surrogacy left behind?

9:04 80% of the time.

9:06 At one point, Svitlana looked after twins for 11 months.

9:11 But don't you think that leaving their babies for nearly

9:14 a year is a bit selfish and a bit careless?

9:19 Well, it's not normal, but unfortunately we had some cases.

9:23 Not so long ago, the twins were collected It was stressful,

9:28 and I cried When I handed them over.

9:31 It hurts.

9:34 Because there the children were already treated as if they were their own.

9:39 But they grew up and you saw how they grow,

9:42 how they talk, and how their teeth hurt.

9:45 In short, don't go there, because it still hurts for me.

9:52 But not every baby is collected.

9:56 Wei was born through surrogacy in 2021.

10:00 He is such a special child to us.

10:03 us.

10:04 He loves Wei was born prematurely with a severe brain injury.

10:11 He cannot sit unaided, hold his head, or see properly.

10:17 When his intended parents were told about his condition,

10:21 they did not come for him.

10:24 So his biological parents just disappeared?

10:27 All I know is that he was born by a surrogate mother for foreigners.

10:32 They refused to take him when they learned he was born with a disability.

10:36 It’s painful.

10:37 It always hurts when a family abandons a child.

10:41 We put these concerns to the agency that handled wei's surrogacy.

10:46 Do you personally take any responsibility when a child is abandoned?

10:53 Partially, yes.

10:56 If somewhere we make a medical mistake and premature birth occurs,

11:01 or we fail to notice something,

11:03 and then the parents abandon the child, I partly consider it our fault.

11:11 You previously said that that child is more dead than alive.

11:17 Do you stand by that?

11:23 But at that moment I thought he wouldn't make it.

11:29 Did they do anything to help?

11:32 No, no.

11:34 No one from any clinic has called us to help this child.

11:41 But that could be about to change.

11:45 The Ukrainian parliament is debating a new

11:47 law that could ban surrogacy for foreign parents,

11:51 effectively shutting down one of the world's biggest surrogacy markets.

11:57 How often are children born through surrogacy left behind?

12:02 There is a lot of children that are left behind,

12:04 and it's not only children that're left behind.

12:07 We don't know where the children go from there.

12:09 As soon as they get picked up from this country, we don't what happens to them.

12:13 I think it's a concern for any resident of any country.

12:18 Surrogacy is one of the ways for children trafficking.

12:21 It is.

12:22 Would this law solve that problem?

12:25 We do believe that it will minimise that.

12:28 The goal of that bill is to have regulations

12:32 because we don't have them at this point at all.

12:36 We asked the health ministry for official data,

12:39 but no authority we contacted could provide any.

12:45 Politicians are also worried about falling birth rates,

12:49 driven by the exodus of many young Ukrainian women.

12:53 The argument, Ukraine should not export babies

12:56 to foreigners at a time of deep demographic crisis.

13:01 But for those women who choose to do it,

13:05 This is a lifeline in a country where war has stripped away their livelihoods,

13:10 Anastasia became a surrogate after her home in Kherson was

13:15 destroyed and her father was killed in a Russian drone strike.

13:19 I am totally against this bill.

13:26 Why take away the opportunity to earn relatively good money for Ukrainians?

13:30 NIt's your decision, no-one makes you become a surrogate mother.

13:34 And for many couples from all over the world,

13:38 this is what made their hard-fought dream of becoming parents come true.

13:45 I think it's totally...

13:47 Wrong.

13:49 It's unhuman.

13:50 Like this, we help them, they help us.

13:53 Without this, we will not have our Alexander here with us now.

14:04 I would like to to buy a house and make my wish come true.

14:09 I am ready to go through several for as long as my health allows.

14:19 We don't know what happens to the women after they hand over the babies.

14:22 As far as I know, there is no usual practise

14:26 to provide them psychological support or legal support or anything else.

14:32 And whatever medical issues they have as a result of surrogacy are

14:36 not the problem of the company and not the problems of the customers.

14:39 So women are left to pick up the pieces.

14:42 Surrogacy agencies told us they do not target vulnerable women

14:47 and that their surrogates are consenting

14:50 adults who want to help infertile couples.

14:53 Everything is good.

14:56 We are now heading back in the road

14:59 so Many countries have already banned or restricted surrogacy.

15:08 How long will this window of opportunity remain open?

15:14 It is now up to Ukrainians to decide the future

15:17 of surrogate with a vote on the proposed ban expected this year.

15:25 In two and a half years, unfortunately,

15:27 no one was interested in Wei, no one asked questions about him.

15:33 I think he has very, very little chance of being adopted.