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Ukraine Parliament Considers Bill to Ban Foreigners from Surrogacy Industry
Karina Tarasenko, a 22-year-old surrogate from Bakhmut now living near Kyiv, is six months pregnant with a girl for a Chinese couple and plans multiple surrogacies to buy a home. Parliament is weighing legislation that would ban foreigners, who comprise 95% of intended parents, from the industry that has rebounded to near pre-war levels.
May 7, 1:02 AM·4m read1 source
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Karina Tarasenko, a 22-year-old woman from Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine who is six months pregnant with a girl for a Chinese couple, said she plans to have as many surrogate babies as her body will allow to save up to buy a home. Her own home in Bakhmut was destroyed at age 17 when the city became one of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds in the early phase of Russia's full-scale invasion.
Tarasenko and her partner moved to Kyiv after Bakhmut was largely destroyed.
She decided to become a surrogate after struggling to afford bread and nappies for her one-and-a-half-year-old daughter while in a shop one day. Tarasenko now lives on the outskirts of Kyiv in an apartment provided by her surrogacy clinic. She will earn £12,500 ($17,000) for the surrogacy, roughly double the average salary in Ukraine.
She had been due to receive £15,500 ($21,000) but her pay was cut after one of the twins she was pregnant with died, as stipulated in her contract. "At first, becoming a surrogate made me angry and disappointed, but now I've just accepted it," Tarasenko said. She rejects the idea that commercial surrogacy is exploitative.
"No-one is forcing us. This is my body, my decision... " Prior to the war, Ukraine was widely cited as the world's second commercial surrogacy hub behind the United States. Surrogacies in Ukraine have nearly bounced back to pre-war levels, experts have told the BBC.
Ukraine's parliament is considering a bill that would introduce stricter oversight of the surrogacy industry and effectively ban access to foreigners. Foreigners make up 95% of the intended parents in Ukraine's surrogacy industry. The bill has widespread support across Ukraine's parliament.
