According to a report on the Russia Today (RT) website on the 8th, the Russian State Duma (the lower house of parliament) passed a bill on Thursday that prohibits foreigners from seeking Russian women to provide surrogacy.The drafters said the bill aimed to decriminalize medical services in this area and protect the rights of children.

Under the new law, married couples and single Russian women, where one of the spouses is a Russian citizen, can still apply to seek surrogacy.In addition, children born to surrogate mothers in Russia automatically receive Russian citizenship.

Councilor Vasily Piskarev, one of the drafters of the bill and chairman of the Russian State Duma's Security and Anti-Corruption Committee, explained earlier that the ban "is a coercive measure based on the cases of death and trafficking of children born through surrogacy".Cumulatively, about 4.5 children born to surrogate mothers in Russia have been taken abroad, he said.
"The main goals of this bill are to protect the rights of children, decriminalize medical services in this area and allocate financial funds to discourage birth travel," he stressed.
According to reports, the bill was first introduced in 2021.After the Russian State Duma passed the third reading, the bill still needs to be approved by the Russian Federation Council (the upper house of parliament) and signed by the Russian president before it can officially become a law.
In Russia's current law, commercial assisted reproduction has been legal since 1995. In August 2012, Order No. 8 issued by the Russian Ministry of Health clearly stipulated the medical examination items and screening conditions for surrogate mothers, which provided a legal space for surrogacy agencies to operate.However, the current law neither provides legal protection for surrogate mothers or biological parents seeking surrogacy, nor does it protect the rights and interests of newborns.

Is it surrogacy or "human trafficking"?

与很多欧洲国家禁止代孕不同，在俄罗斯现行法律中，确实存在允许进行代孕的法律条款，它们是2011年11月21日第323号联邦法律《俄罗斯联邦公民健康保护原则法》、1995年12月8日第223号联邦法律《俄罗斯联邦家庭法典》、1997年11月15日第143号联邦法律《公民身份法令》以及2012年8月30日俄罗斯卫生部第107号命令。

However, these laws impose conditions on both applicants for surrogacy services and surrogate mothers, for example, applicants must have specific diseases listed in the provisions, or have more than three miscarriages.Not everyone can become a surrogate mother. She should be between 25 and 35 years old, healthy and psychologically stable, and she already has a healthy child.For medical institutions operating this process, there are also a series of requirements listed in the legal text.

However, in real cases of transnational surrogacy, the biological parents of the child spend most of their time abroad, and the surrogate mother may also be a non-Russian woman. After they sign a contract with a Russian agency, the latter will arrange the process. It is difficult to define their interest in Russia. Whether the law knows, or whether the intermediary is hiding something.

Some surrogacy agencies will use some private hospitals that secretly carry out IVF operations to carry out transplants, while others have opened their own underground clinics and cooperate with qualified doctors.Russian law is almost blank when it comes to restraining intermediaries.

At the same time, since there is a crime of human trafficking in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, when the official wants to make up his mind to crack down on it, surrogacy can easily fall into this crime.In addition to the debate on the moral level, how to determine whether it is surrogacy or human trafficking in judicial practice is another major focus.

Current Situation of Surrogacy in Russia

According to the report of the Russian Investigative Committee in September last year, since 9, dozens of single men have used in vitro fertilization and surrogacy services through clinics, including some "non-traditional" sexual orientation.These individuals will be wanted or arrested for investigation for the offense of "purchasing children".In the meantime, their children must be taken up by foster care agencies or orphanages.The Russian Investigative Committee also stated that they will combine several criminal cases caused by surrogacy in 2014.

Investigators have made matters more nuanced by targeting the gay community.Many people do not buy the logic behind the official "buy children".Some analysts believe that it is difficult for Russian law enforcement agencies to convict those involved in surrogacy by relying on existing laws, and it is extremely difficult to investigate cross-border surrogacy. Therefore, they have abandoned the previous narrative of "human trafficking" and instead focused on combating domestic sexual minorities.

According to an investigative video broadcast on October 10 last year by the Russian independent TV station "Rain", the Russian surrogacy market is worth billions of rubles and has existed almost without state control for nearly 22 years.Blank legal supervision and low prices have attracted "customers" in demand from all over the world.

After the outbreak of the new crown epidemic, hundreds of multinational surrogate babies were stranded in Russia, and the government had to pay attention to this industry.But the official response has been disappointing. The above-mentioned investigation video stated that "for some reason, they only focus on the gay father of the surrogate baby and the foreigners who cannot be caught".

On June 6 last year, the Russian media Rg.ru published a commentary on two criminal cases of surrogacy, saying that Russia’s legislation on surrogacy is not yet perfect, so that people can bypass the regulations and set up many commercial organizations and legal entities, charging hundreds of dollars. 25 rubles to complete surrogacy for domestic and foreign clients.

According to the "Law on the Principles of Citizens' Health Protection of the Russian Federation" and the "Family Law of the Russian Federation", if a woman has a medical certificate confirming her infertility, she is entitled to commercial surrogacy services.Parents of surrogate babies need permission from the surrogate when they register the newborn as their own.Once birth registration is complete, the surrogate mother cannot contest ownership of the child.

This means that the law neither regulates nor provides protections if the surrogate mother refuses to hand over the child as contracted before registration, and if the surrogate applicant is a foreign citizen.