The International Fertility Trade and Reproductive Tourism: When Old Treaties Meet New Technologies



Surrogates must stay in dormitories at some clinics.
Courtesy of BBC News

By Laura Notess

“Reproductive tourism,” the practice of traveling abroad to receive assisted reproductive technology, is a relatively recent phenomenon. Driven by the increasing availability of such technology and a desire for children of their own, couples around the world have turned to surrogacy and egg donation on an international scale. Yet the resultant fertility industry poses a number of challenging bioethical questions, several of which implicate potential rights violations that have so far received little discussion in the global human rights community.

Despite Criminalization, FGM Persists in Egypt

by Mai El-Sadany
Twitter: @MaiE_89

Source: Flickr

In what was considered by many to be a legal and at least superficial victory, on February 3, 2013, Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court rejected a lawsuit challenging the illegality of female genital mutilation (FGM). The lawsuit was filed in 2008 to challenge a decision by the Ministry of Health in 2007 to criminalize the practice, claiming that the ban violated the principles of Sharia. FGM had been made illegal in the country in 1997, and in 2006, the head of Al-Azhar, Egypt’s most prominent Islamic institution, denounced the practice and distanced it from religious traditions (and again reiterated this position in 2008 and 2011).

Despite the solid legal stance against FGM in the country, the practice remains pervasive in Egyptian society and it is unclear to what degree the most recent court ruling will have an effect on the day-to-day lives of Egyptian women. In a country that has recently completed the drafting and ratification of its constitution and continues to undergo a transition period where rule of law and implementation of both national legal codes and international standards has largely been absent, the outlook is not a positive one.

About 91 percent of all women aged 15 to 49 have been circumcised in Egypt; while the numbers are showing a slight decrease among younger generations, the practice remains common. The procedure is often performed on young girls and considered by many to be a “rite of passage” into adulthood. Although there are multiple ways to carry out FGM, the procedure generally involves the removal of the clitoris, along with all or part of the labia minora. Although historically conducted by traditional birth attendants without anesthetic or appropriate medical care, more and more licensed doctors and nurses are carrying out the procedure. FGM has been regarded as a means to preserve the woman’s virginity before marriage for the sake of both culture and religion by decreasing her sexual desire. Although many in Egypt believe that the practice is based in religion, others unequivocally deny this. The side effects of FGM and poor after-care of the invasive procedure can range from minor infections to long-standing psychological issues, problems with menstruation and childbirth, extreme ailments, bleeding for days, and in some cases, death.

The Prohibitive Price of Affordable Fashion

by Elena Marsteller

“Sales from $3,” announces the website of H&M, a retail clothing company that quickly and cheaply manufactures clothing inspired by current fashion trends.  The ongoing popularity of affordable fashion is evident in the success of brands like H&M and its contemporaries, as even the First Lady has embraced the trend geared to the buyer on a budget.

However, a high price is paid for the production of $10 jeans by others in the global supply chain, especially children in Uzbekistan, who are forced into labor as cotton pickers during an annual cotton harvest. According to We Live Subject to their Orders, a report by a group of Uzbek human rights activists in partnereship with the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), Uzbekistan is the world’s 6^th largest producer of cotton and the 3^rd largest exporter of cotton. Between September and November, Uzbek cotton exports generate $1 billion in revenue. The child laborers carrying the burden of harvesting the cash crop are unique because they operate as part of a state-sanctioned forced labor program, compelling all citizens, including children, to pick mandated quotas of cotton during the harvest. 

 

Current State of Child Labor in Uzbekistan

A Human Rights Watch report states that “International nongovernmental organizations and foreign media outlets are prevented from operating in Uzbekistan, making it difficult to report on forced and child labor or other human rights abuses.” Furthermore, the government of Uzbekistan will not allow the ILO to send independent experts to observe and control forced child labor.  Because of the Uzbek government’s reluctance to allow formal outside supervision of the cotton harvest, it is impossible to know with certainty the current state of child labor in the country. Much of the available information relies on the observations of human rights defenders in Uzbekistan. According to the most recent US Department of Labor report, 2011 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, children in Uzbekistan are “engaged in the worst form of child labor” during the cotton harvest. In 2011 there were more young students allowed to stay in school rather than participate in the harvest overall. However, the report cites some incidences where young children were still required to pick cotton in order to reach a required quota. Generally it appeared that older children were sent to harvest cotton before younger children, but there were incidents reported where children as young as ten were forced into the fields.

 

Human Rights in the Shadows of “Too Big To Fail”

by Gabe Lezra

Dani hasn’t had many early mornings recently. More and more, he has found himself with nowhere to be during the day; he graduated high school more than ten years ago, and began working with his father in construction. He goes weeks without work now, trying his best to find odd jobs, local contracting work, and fly-by-night dishwashing. But the phone hasn’t been ringing: he is thirty-two years old, a high-school graduate, and a member of Spain’s new lost generation.

Dani’s is a common story in Southern Spain. Hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs during the financial crisis, as Spain, with its nascent manufacturing and construction industries, was particularly hard-hit by the credit crunch. Without banks to lend capital to companies to invest in new buildings, this generation was quite suddenly out of a job.

Most of them still are. Youth unemployment in Spain as a whole is over 50%; it’s even higher in the South where Daniel lives. The national unemployment rate hovers around 25%, the highest in the European Union; in 2005, the unemployment rate in Spain was 9.2%, only incrementally more than the EU average of 9.0%. Average income has dropped 4% while the cost of living has increased; seeing people in aging designer clothes foraging in the trash outside of grocery stores is commonplace. All of this, concludes a recent Cáritas report, has caused a “notable drop in well-being.”

The narrative in the United States has been one of recovery since the height of the crisis; in Spain, it has been one of cuts. Austerity measures imposed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in conjunction with European Union officials and the European Central Bank have seen the ranks of Spain’s unemployed swell to 5.78 million people in October, up from 5.69 million in September, and 2.6 million four years ago.

If we have learned anything from the crisis in the United States it is that a financial regulatory system should not be based on outdated political policies like “too big to fail”—that regulatory regimes must be regulatory. In Spain, we can see the human cost of these failings; in Spain, we can see with particular clarity that the real effects of a financial crisis are on the day-to-day lives of the working class.

It is time for a new perspective on economic crises driven by this understanding. It is time to engage thoughtfully with the human costs of crises—of austerity measures imposed by governments that disproportionately harm the poor, of cuts to vital social services that leave young people like Dani with nowhere to turn. It is time to view the effects of financial crises through a human rights lens.