Third Casablanca Conference for the Abolition of Surrogacy
On June 4 and 5, Lima, the capital of Peru, hosted the Third Casablanca Conference for the Universal Abolition of Surrogacy. Organized by the Casablanca Declaration and the University of Piura, the event brought together nearly 300 participants, along with some twenty experts from eight countries, mostly women.
The organizing committee took advantage of the event to host a meeting with parliamentarians and the country's Vice Minister for Vulnerable Persons, as well as senior officials from the Peruvian Ministry of Women, to raise awareness of the harm caused to women and children by the practice of surrogacy.
Surrogacy is unregulated in many South American countries, where conditions of inequality and structural poverty weaken women's ability to make free decisions. "We cannot continue to believe in the narrative of free choice when surrogate mothers are subject to economic and social pressures," insisted Colombian lawyer Diana Muñoz.
"We are in Lima, Peru, and this is important. It is important because Latin America is the next battleground," warned Olivia Maurel, a surrogacy survivor and spokesperson for the Casablanca Declaration, in her closing remarks.
"This is important because the women of this continent—your sisters, your daughters, your neighbors—are being targeted, targeted and exploited by a multi-billion-dollar surrogacy industry that has learned exactly how to profit from poverty and invisibility." This market is expected to reach $129 billion by 2032.
"Today, I am here in Lima," she continued, "not as a victim, but as a survivor. As a fighter. As a mother. And as a spokesperson for the Casablanca Declaration, I will use my voice—and my story—to ensure this never happens to another child,” the spokeswoman urged.
“Many people have told me I was very lucky to be loved by a family; however, I could no longer feel that way after learning I had been treated like a commodity, like the object of a contract,” she said.
“What happened wasn’t love; it was a loss, sold as love. It was abandonment, sold as a miracle. Surrogacy is presented as an act of kindness, but it’s modern-day slavery. It doesn’t try to build families; on the contrary, it tears them apart,” Olivia Maurel further denounced.
She ended with this cry of indignation: "We have criminalized the sale of organs, we have rejected child labor and banned child marriage, but we continue to allow the buying and selling of babies."
(Sources : Génèthique/Déclaration de Casablanca/Universidad de Piura – FSSPX.Actualités)
Illustration : ID 3475822 © Maria Zhuravleva | Dreamstime.com
