A housekeeping agency in China has been openly advertising for women to be surrogate mothers, offering as much as $30,000 as payment — and many are not happy about it.
According to the South China Morning Post, Huchen Housekeeping — which is headquartered in Henan Province — has been posting online advertisements offering payment plans for potential surrogates. The local health commission is reportedly investigating.
The South China Morning Post reported that reactions to the advertisements were seemingly not positive:
“Are they insane? This is blatantly illegal and audacious!”
“If this is permitted, any one of us could be the next victim of human trafficking.”
“Please do not exploit women as tools for reproduction!”
This isn’t the first time surrogacy has caused scandal in recent years; last year, an investigation uncovered an illegal surrogacy ring, with hundreds of surrogate mothers in place across the country. A salesperson told investigators that they produce over 300 births each year, and also provide other “services,” such as customizing the gender of embryos used for IVF. There are also insinuations of potential infanticide; “unwanted” children, who are found to have disabilities at birth, are “taken care of,” while parents receive a refund or a credit to try again.
READ: He threw her a gender reveal party for their twins. Then he murdered her.
Other hospitals have been accused of selling birth certificates, allegedly used to register and legitimize both children born to surrogates, and children who have been kidnapped. Investigators said biological parents have been increasingly selling their children at a profit, with 363 cases out of 380 abducted children in China from 2014 to 2015 involving parents selling their own children.
China has desperately been trying to reverse course following its One Child Policy as birth rates have consistently plummeted. While surrogacy is not legal, the government has been subsidizing IVF, but the low fertility rate has persisted. China’s now-defunct One Child Policy, which was created with the help of the United Nations Population Fund and the International Planned Parenthood Fund, largely influenced newer generations to spurn childbearing. While the policy was in place, a cultural preference for sons led to millions of missing Chinese girls, as many parents used abortion as a way to commit gendercide. To this day, there is still a massive gender imbalance in China.
