Image Source: Shutterstock
The Times has reported that Nigeria has become the second most popular destination for people in England seeking children through foreign surrogacy arrangements, with official figures revealing a sharp rise over the past decade.
According to data released by Cafcass under freedom of information laws, the number of parental order applications involving babies born to Nigerian surrogate mothers increased from just six in 2015 to 59 in 2025. Only the United States recorded more cases last year, with 125 applications.
The figures reflect a rapidly expanding international surrogacy industry. In 2018, there were just over 150 parental order applications involving children born overseas through surrogacy. By 2024, that number had risen to more than 300.
Family lawyers told The Times that Nigeria’s popularity is partly driven by significantly lower costs compared with the United States, alongside existing family or cultural connections for some intended parents. Others pointed to the availability of ethnically matched egg donors and surrogate mothers for people of African heritage—a point easily dismissed when considering the increased price of white eggs and sperm in commercial surrogacy arrangements.
The rapid growth of the industry has intensified serious ethical concerns. Lawyers have warned about poor regulations, inadequate medical screening, immigration complications, and uncertainty surrounding whether surrogate mothers are able to give fully informed and unconditional consent after birth.
The practice also raises growing concerns about the exploitation of vulnerable women. Many Nigerian surrogate mothers come from impoverished backgrounds, creating obvious financial pressure to enter agreements that wealthier Western clients can afford to pursue. In some reported cases, women have allegedly been paid very small sums while surrendering enormous physical and emotional burdens.
There are claims that some surrogate mothers could not later be contacted to provide consent for British parental orders. In other cases, women reportedly used their own eggs during pregnancies, further complicating questions of motherhood, consent, and parental rights.
Adoption from Nigeria into the UK faces strict scrutiny because of trafficking concerns, while international surrogacy arrangements remain legally accessible to British citizens provided they later obtain a parental order.
The Times has further reported allegations that some Nigerian women are pressured into signing exploitative contracts, including clauses surrounding caesarean sections carried out primarily for the convenience of commissioning parents or clinics.
While commercial surrogacy itself remains illegal in Britain, foreign arrangements continue to operate in a legal grey area. This effectively allows wealthier individuals to bypass domestic safeguards by outsourcing surrogacy overseas to poorer countries with weaker protections and has led to dreadful abuses of children by unfit parents with no social service oversight.
SPUC’s Executive Director, Michael Robinson, has said: “SPUC calls on the government to reject the liberalisation of surrogacy laws that its proponents are pushing for and instead follow the path of Italy and condemn this newest form of human trafficking and exploitation in law. We need a universal surrogacy ban (one that criminalises overseas travel for surrogacy purposes) to protect women and children from exploitation by unvetted and unfit commissioning parents. Children are not for sale. Wombs are not for sale. The government cannot keep burying its head in the sand.”
