EU: “The exploitation of surrogate motherhood is a crime”, rejoice FdI and Pro Vita. Coscioni Association: “But solidarity Gpa is not a crime”

The European Parliament approved with 563 in favour, 7 against and 17 abstentions a directive that broadens the scope of current measures to better combat and prevent human trafficking and better support its victims. To support EU actions against human trafficking beyond labor and sexual exploitation, the new law also criminalizes forced marriage, illegal adoption and the exploitation of surrogacy at European level.

Exploitation and coercion are the real crimes

“To broaden the EU’s actions against human trafficking, in addition to labor and sexual exploitation, the new legislation also criminalizes, at European level, the exploitation of pregnancy for others (GPA)”, explains the Luca Coscioni association. “Last January the Coscioni Association with other associations belonging to a European network, created to join forces on the issue of regulating pregnancy for others in solidarity against the threats of universal bans, had sent a letter to the European institutions called to decide on the confirmation or not of the criminalization of the Gpa, in the case of exploitation and coercion. The European Parliament today confirms that pregnancy for others can be a ‘trafficking’ crime only in cases where it involves the exploitation of the people involved”.

Filomena Gallo: “Full compliance with the European directive”

“The EU confirms that exploitation for the purpose of pregnancy for others is the only possible universal crime”, declared the lawyers Filomena Gallo and Francesca Re, lawyers and respectively National Secretary and board member of the Luca Coscioni Association for the freedom of scientific research. “While the absolute ban, which the Varchi bill proposed today under discussion in the Senate would introduce, would encourage abuse and clandestinity. The bill on pregnancy for others in solidarity that the Luca Coscioni Association has developed together with other associations and experts, deposited by the senators Ivan Scalfarotto and – with some modifications – by Mariolina Castellone in the Senate and by the deputy Riccardo Magi in the Chamber, in order to better protect all the subjects involved, introduces the art. 600 of the penal code a new crime of reduction and maintenance in slavery punishing with imprisonment from 8 to 20 years ‘whoever reduces or maintains a person in a state of continuous subjection, forcing them to perform work or sexual activities or to carry out a pregnancy for others’ , therefore in full compliance with the European directive approved today”.

FdI: The “inhuman commercial practice”

Yet FdI and Pro Vita rejoice, talking about the criminalization of surrogate motherhood tout court. “Surrogacy, forced marriages and illegal adoptions become crimes throughout the European Union”, says the deputy minister of Labor and Social Policies, Maria Teresa Bellucci. For Jacopo Coghe, spokesperson for Pro Vita & Famiglia onlus, “surrogacy is always an inhuman commercial practice, which exploits women’s bodies and transforms children into consumer goods. Even if the woman were free, the commissioned child would still be the victim of real human trafficking”. For Carolina Varchi, deputy of the Brothers of Italy and first signatory of the bill that would make surrogacy a universal crime , “the rented uterus is an inhuman, cynical practice, which offends women and risks transforming motherhood into a business, as if children could be equated with any goods or products that can be purchased in a shop”.