British couples can’t adopt babies from Nigeria, yet acquire them from Nigerian surrogate mothers
Many believe that surrogacy in the UK puts “friendship first” and is confined to families and close friends, but the latest court ruling involving an anonymous surrogate mother suggests there is more to this than is first thought.
The case in the Family Court involves a UK couple with roots in Nigeria. Husband “B” and wife “C” came to the end of the options presented to them by fertility doctors here, so they turned to Lifelink Fertility Clinic in Lagos, Nigeria. The solution from a Dr Kemi at this clinic came in the form of not one but two women, and a third woman provided an egg.
Women’s bodies are the very foundations of the surrogacy industry so of course they are the prime source for their “useful” reproductive organs that conceive, grow and birth babies. We don’t know what methods Dr Kemi used to recruit the two surrogate mothers, named only as GH and GH2, but one of these women had a baby girl for B and C and Dr Kemi claimed that the protection of her anonymity was paramount. Direct contact was not permitted and this seems to be something the couple were happy with, until they applied for a passport for the child. It was then that the realisation set in that they needed to know who the mother was after all, because they needed to ask for her consent to secure parental rights for themselves.
The ruling handed down last month bears a striking resemblance to a case in February. Another British couple with family connections to Nigeria received a baby girl from an anonymous woman, provided to them again by Dr Kemi at Lifelink Fertility Clinic. Again, the couple did not have direct contact, they didn’t even see her as her face was always covered when the couple attended remote appointments by video link. From the court notes it seems they only met her when she gave birth to the baby they had commissioned. We can only hope that her face was not also covered during the birth.
When the parental order was needed to grant the commissioning couple parental rights, their intentions were laid bare. Said Mr and Mrs H:
At that point we were satisfied that opting for an anonymous surrogacy will be our best option since we will not meet the surrogate mother and she will not know us. We thought this will remove all the problems people face when they do surrogacy and the stigma that surrounds it. We want safety, protection, security, and peace of mind. We didn’t want unnecessary involvement and attachment; we just want to sign the contract without owing anybody obligation. We understand someone to do this is really giving us something special, we don’t want to carry this for the rest of our lives identifying the person will make us think we owe them gratitude for the rest of our life.
This isn’t a friendship formed through a desire for family and generosity of spirit to help someone close to you, or shared country connections and the love of a much-wanted child. It is the commodification of a woman’s body because she is poor and someone, somewhere wanted a baby they couldn’t create themselves. Some call this a form of fertility treatment. Others may think of it as exploitation.
Only scant details were provided on the contract between Mr and Mrs H and the surrogate mother as she signed only with her initials, not a signature. This anonymous status was duly noted by judge Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Court Division in the ruling:
A further cause for concern in the present case is the anonymity of the surrogate mother. Not only does anonymity prevent the court from being able to be satisfied that the mother knows of the application and consents to it, it also raises the level of suspicion that the arrangement may have been otherwise than it is said to be. Whilst Mr and Mrs H have explained their motivation for opting for an anonymous surrogacy, their decision has, in fact, caused them a great deal of difficulty in presenting the present application. Those who follow in their footsteps in the future would be well advised to avoid engaging with an anonymous surrogate.
A warning that must be heeded, but should the UK law go further? Surrogacy has evolved into a complex, commercially driven practice which points to a troubling trend: British couples are increasingly seeking surrogacy services abroad. Cases coming before family division recently involve Ukraine, Cyprus and Kazakhstan. Could Nigeria be a burgeoning surrogacy destination for Brits travelling abroad to buy babies?
Foreigners exploit a weak legal system in Nigeria
An investigative piece from Nigerian media outlet DUBAWA revealed how women are targeted on social media for surrogacy. Documenting the lived experience of surrogate mothers and the recruitment methods of brokers via on Facebook, journalist Simbiat Bakare shared her thoughts:
Foreigners exploiting a weak legal system in Nigeria and its citizens further complicates the nation’s human rights goals and development. It is concerning to hear that British couples are beginning to take advantage of weak laws and legal loopholes and make Nigeria a base for reproductive exploitation. They often see the value in Nigerian women birthing and giving them their children, working with agents to make sure contracts favour them, and anonymise the surrogate mothers. In reality, no surrogate is truly anonymous. One part of the process in Nigeria is submitting details which include the surrogate submitting their picture and details (in case they run away during the pregnancy) and contact of their guarantors. Agencies and clinics often just hide the identity of the intending parents from the surrogates.
An argument I often hear is “why not legalise surrogacy?” Rather than tackling the deep roots of why women are recruited into surrogacy in the first place, it is far easier to legalise and by doing so, legitimise and normalise “altruistic” surrogacy, and that is what Nigeria is on its way to doing.
Although there is no specific law guiding surrogacy in Nigeria, as children’s rights and anti-human trafficking laws contravene the practice, but a new Bill was tabled by a commissioning parent last year and earlier this month it passed its second reading. Another UK-Nigeria connection in surrogacy is found in the law firms as, behind the scenes, pro-surrogacy UK lawyers presented to the Nigerian Bar Association last November, supporting the regulation of this harmful practice.
More widely, surrogacy is being rejected. The UN’s first document on surrogacy was published this summer. UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem’s report calls for member states to “take steps to eradicate surrogacy in all its forms”. The 2024 European Parliament directive on preventing and combating human trafficking explicitly identified surrogacy as a form of exploitation and they have called for action to end this practice.
I attended an event at the European Parliament on 19 November titled “Surrogacy: An Ethical and Political Challenge for Europe”. The view was that buying a child was “not normal” and it is an offence to human dignity, for both mother and child. At this event, Reem Alsalem explained there “is no meaningful distinction between the ‘altruistic’ and commercial models” in surrogacy. Whether surrogacy is done for money or to help through empathy and action, it remains a transactional process.
Temitope Afolabi, a surrogate mother in Nigeria who spoke to Simbiat Bakare would agree. Despite signing a contract, being paid and decompartmentalising herself out of motherhood, if she could she would give back all the money to have the baby in her arms. She deeply regrets the transaction she agreed to and would undo it all if she could.
It’s clear that UK Family Judges are faced with impossible decisions when presented with a baby or toddler who has been born through these circumstances. It’s clear there have been questionable actions from commissioning parents and the straight up refusal from overseas clinics to cooperate with surrogacy laws here, but the child already exists.
British citizens cannot adopt from Nigeria and this has been the case since 2021. This restriction was put in place due to child welfare and safeguarding concerns within the Nigerian adoption system, which led to a decision to no longer issue certificates of eligibility for children from Nigeria. But surrogacy? That has the green light but these recent cases suggest we should be hitting the brakes.
Simbiate Bakare told me:
Foreigners, including British couples, often take advantage of the weak regulatory system in Nigeria, the country’s status as a low income nation, and the colonial mindset that still exists to exploit Nigerian women into becoming surrogate mothers. Often when a foreigner is the one proposing a practice such as surrogacy, they mistake it as ethical and lucrative. I find it ironic that intended parents would go to great lengths to get anonymous vulnerable women to carry and give up their babies, but later claim not being able to trace them for their consent to transfer their parental rights. Meanwhile, the surrogates are probably suffering from postpartum depression from giving away the child.
Could the beginnings of a ban on international surrogacy start with a block list, as it is with adoption?
These are questions that this government will have to face sooner rather than later as Brits continue to go abroad for cheap deals. “B”, who owns three properties, and “C” paid just £6,600 for this baby girl. How much of that was paid to anonymous surrogate mother GH1 for her womb rental and “birthing service”, we can’t be sure.
