Intro­duc­tion

“Wom­en’s move­ments and Ges­ta­tion­al Sur­ro­ga­cy. Engag­ing, debat­ing and pol­i­cy mak­ing — WoM­oGeS” is a 3‑year com­par­a­tive study on the dif­fer­ent posi­tions, frames, strate­gic alliances, pol­i­cy mak­ing and mobi­liza­tion of women’s move­ments (WMs) on ges­ta­tion­al sur­ro­ga­cy (GS) in 4 coun­tries: USA, Mex­i­co, Italy and India. WoM­oGeS is con­duct­ed by researcher Dr Daniela Ban­del­li, under the super­vi­sion of soci­ol­o­gist Prof Con­sue­lo Cor­ra­di at the LUMSA Uni­ver­si­ty in Rome. The project is fund­ed by the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion Marie-Sklodows­ka Curie Actions (2018–2021). Ini­tial find­ings and reflec­tions elab­o­rat­ed dur­ing the first year of the project are sum­ma­rized in this doc­u­ment in response to the OHCHR Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on the sale and sex­u­al exploita­tion of chil­dren’s call for inputs for the elab­o­ra­tion of the “Safe­guards for the pro­tec­tion of the rights of chil­dren born from sur­ro­ga­cy arrange­ments”. Inter­na­tion­al lit­er­a­ture and obser­va­tions of sur­ro­ga­cy activism in oth­er coun­tries (e.g. France, Spain, Aus­tralia) are also embed­ded in the study.