Ms Maud de Boer-Buquicchio:

I thank Senator Seery Kearney for the question and for insisting on the importance of the sale dimension of these surrogacy practices. Of course, the sale of a child is a crime, and it should be a crime under international law. That is what the optional protocol requires.

The other question is to what extent we wish to prosecute surrogate mothers who are involved in this process. That is very much linked to the question of the role of the intermediaries. I do not think it would be fair to prosecute, especially surrogate mothers who have accepted this process under some degree of constraint, either directly or because of their vulnerability, because they have come from poor backgrounds and they simply needed the money. What matters here is to identify the role of the intermediaries, who are at the origin of the whole process and who look for these vulnerable persons to engage in this process.

Intermediaries cannot always be easily identified but it is those who profit from the agreement. I would definitely exclude from the category of intermediaries the medical staff who merely support the physical process. However, at the same time, if the remuneration for these medical or paramedical services goes beyond reasonable and itemised expenses, then clinics and sometimes individual doctors may be regarded as being intermediaries and therefore playing a complicit role in the commission of a crime. This is the reality, and it is important to try to analyse on an at-home basis what has been the role of the intermediary, who has been the intermediary, and whether the clinic, for example, simply provides the facilities once the agreement has been reached between the parties without any implication. Sometimes it goes far beyond that and then we have a much more doubtful role of the intermediaries, who should really be sanctioned.