Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I call for a debate with the Ministers for Health and Justice on concerns about human trafficking and the vulnerability of those engaged in commercial surrogacy.University College Dublin, UCD, released a report earlier on prostitution websites. It has been covered by RTÉ and in the Irish Examiner and the headlines do not make for good reading. One states, "Concern women and girls exploited in online sex trade across Ireland". That should be shocking enough, given it relates to children. The other headline reads, "Sex websites 'are facilitating exploitation of women by pimps and traffickers'". That should get both Ministers exercised.

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has warned that the commercial surrogacy industry in many countries is rife with human rights abuses. Ireland has become the first country in the EU to legalise commercial surrogacy, through the assisted human reproduction Act we passed earlier this year. Commercial surrogacy is rife with human trafficking and exploitation. A clinic in Greece that was investigated was offering its commercial surrogacy services on the Internet. It was found the women there had been enticed from significantly poorer countries such as Georgia and Albania. Brenda Power, speaking on Newstalk recently about this Greek clinic, stated that when these Georgian women arrived at the clinic, they were impregnated against their will and that their babies were sold internationally to couples. Women being forced to conceive children is akin to rape.

The most dangerous aspect of the assisted reproduction legislation in Ireland is the risk that women overseas will be taken advantage of. Our law can in no way affect how countries such as Ukraine or India legislate for commercial surrogacy. That is the real danger of facilitating Irish people in engaging in surrogacy services abroad. We are rubber-stamping inhumane practices that are inextricably linked to human trafficking. In Ukraine, surrogacy clinics advertise that there are no legal means by which the surrogate mother can ever change her mind. When we passed this law in June, the Minister stated that the Bill was designed to safeguard against the sale, trafficking and exploitation of children. He went on to say, "The provisions of the Bill are designed to prevent abusive or exploitative practices involving surrogate mothers and to protect their rights, interests and welfare." There is no other way to frame surrogacy. It is the sale of children and the exploitation of vulnerable women from poorer countries. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission wrote twice to the Minister, on 31 January and 11 April of this year, yet had not received a response by the date of drafting of its third evaluation of the implementation of the EU anti-trafficking directive. The Commission stated that it remains concerned that the international surrogacy provisions cannot be regulated to an equivalent extent, leading to a double standard of protections between international and domestic surrogacy arrangements.

I call for a continued debate on this matter in the interests of preventing human trafficking and protecting women and girls in this country.