Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1697639470361.pdf (Australia)
Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Human Rights Sub-Committee PO Box 6021 PARLIAMENT HOUSE CANBERRA ACT 2600 Parliamentary inquiry into the human rights issues confronting women and girls – in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific Region 1.

Introduction: Thank you for the opportunity to make a submission to this Parliamentary Inquiry.

Catholic Women’s League of Australia Inc. (CWLA) is a national peak body representing seven member organisations located throughout Australia.
We are a Non-Government Organisation and have consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

In that capacity we send a representative annually to the Commission for the Status of Women.

We are also a member of the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organisations.

Through this organisation we have contact with women’s organisations in the Asia Pacific region and send representatives to Asia Pacific Regional Conferences.
Australian branches of the Catholic Women’s League support micro-enterprises in many Asian countries and provide aid in times of disaster, such as the Japanese tsunami.

1.1.

As a Christian organisation within a democratic society, we recognize our right and responsibility towards our sisters (and brothers) living under oppression; coping with disasters; facing discrimination; living with violence, harassment and dealing with a society that dishonours their very existence.

1.2.
1.2.

We are particularly concerned about the promotion of freedom of religion and freedom of speech.

2.
2.

Human rights issues confronting women and girls Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81 As part of the preparation for the Commission for the Status of Women last year, CSW57, papers were submitted to a preliminary meeting, called an Expert Group Meeting (EGM), which was convened in Bangkok, Thailand, from 17–20 September 2012.1,2 These papers were available on the internet and made thought-provoking reading.
The list of acts and abuses classified as “violence against women” is extensive and disheartening: • Human trafficking in women and girls • Sexual violence committed during times of war • Sexual harassment • Forced child marriage, kidnapping for marriage • Incest • Female Genital Mutilation • Male Guardianship where women of all ages are treated as legal minors, having no say in their own lives • Pornography, sex tourism • Stigmatization of women living with HIV and AIDS • Sexualisation of young girls and infantilisation of adult women to ‘market’ them as being sexually appealing • Rape • Honour killings We would like to add surrogacy and femicide to that list and address some of them more extensively.
Other issues, listed at the Bangkok EGM, which impact on the lives of women and make it difficult or impossible for them to protect themselves or their girl children against violence and abuse are: • Exclusion and marginalisation from politics, peacemaking and decision making • Inadequate laws and policies • Failure to implement or enforce existing laws 1 Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and to the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”: implementation of strategic objectives and action in critical areas of concern and further actions and initiatives.
E/CN.6/2013/4.
N1265973 2 Report of the Expert Group Meeting on Prevention of Violence against Women and Girls UN Women in cooperation with ESCAP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO, Bangkok, Thailand, 17-20 September 2012, http://www.unwomen.org/events/59/expert-group-meeting-prevention-of-violence-against- women-and-girls/ Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81 • Under-representation of females in Parliament, key ministries and cabinets • Inability to form alliances • Lack of financial support • Cultural and social norms which oppose or inhibit women’s participation in public life • Discrimination 2.1 Human Trafficking in Women and Girls Human Rights Quarterly, in an article entitled “Human Rights and the New UN Protocols on Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling: A Preliminary Analysis” by Anne Gallagher, reports on The Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime.
“The convention seeks to eliminate “safe havens” where organized criminal activities or the concealment of evidence or profits can take place by promoting the adoption of basic minimum measures.

Five offenses, whether committed by individuals or corporate entities, are covered: participation in an organized criminal group, corruption, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and “serious crime.
“Serious crime” is defined in such a way as to include all significant criminal offenses.” 2.2 Female Genital Mutilation In March 2012, Senator Kroger, Victoria, stated in a Senate speech3, “ In 1997 Amnesty International reported that an estimated 135 million of the world's girls and women had undergone genital mutilation and that some two million girls a year were at risk of mutilation— approximately a staggering 6,000 girls and women per day.” And “The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, just one of the 1,000 hospitals across Australia, has said that it sees 600 to 700 women a year who have been the victims of FGM.
In many cases this was done to these women in their native countries before they immigrated.

However, increasingly the female children of these immigrants are also being mutilated and are being sent home to the countries of birth of their parents.

Most states and territories have enacted specific legislation prohibiting FGM.

Regardless, most legal authorities are of the view that our traditional laws prohibiting physical assault ensure that FGM is illegal in Australia.
However, one must note that prosecutions are very rare in any state or territory.” 2.3 Child Brides, UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children 2013, rates countries according to the percentage who were married before the age of 18 years.

India has the highest number of child brides, 47% of 20 to 24 year olds were child brides – 210 million women.

Child marriage is often a traditional practice, where girls are less valued than boys.
According to Girls Not Brides, 3 Female Genital Mutilation, Senate Speech, Senator Kroger, March 2012.

Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81 “Improving girls’ access to quality schooling will increase girls’ chances of gaining a secondary education and helps to delay marriage.
When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries on average four years later.” “Empowering girls, by offering them opportunities to gain skills and education, providing support networks and creating ‘safe spaces’ where girls can gather and meet outside the home, can help girls assert their right to choose when they marry.4 2.4 Femicide, leading to sex ratio imbalances.
Mara Hvistendahl, author of “Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men”5, claims that it is wealthier families who are choosing to have sons in preference to daughters.

She says that if the technology becomes available to poorer families, the imbalance in the sexes will increase dramatically.

In 2007, the Chinese Government estimated that there were 37 million more males than females6.
By 2020, it is estimated there will be 55 million more males—more than twice the population of Australia— who have little prospect of marrying.

Instead of increasing the worth of girls, this situation has led to increased trafficking, bride abduction, rape and pornography.

Mao Tse Tung might have said that women hold up half the sky, but there are a lot fewer of them to do it!
In a seminal article in 1990, Amartya Sen7, an Indian born Nobel-Laureate and professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, gave a dire warning about the emerging sex-ratio anomalies.

Using the ratio of males to females in China—which is higher than most other countries—Sen calculated that there were 100 million ‘missing women’; the toll is much higher now.
After investigating the statistics for other Asian countries, he wrote: “The fate of women is quite different in most of Asia and North Africa.

In these places the failure to give women medical care similar to what men get and to provide them with comparable food and social services results in fewer women surviving than would be the case if they had equal care.
In India, for example, except in the period immediately following birth, the death rate is higher for women than for men fairly consistently in all age groups until the late thirties.

This relates to higher rates of disease from which women suffer, and ultimately to the relative neglect of females, especially in health care and medical attention.
Similar neglect of women 4 Girls not Brides, www.girlsnotbrides.org 5 Mara Hvistendahl, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men.

New York: PublicAffairs, 2011.


6 Anderson, Siwan and Ray, Debraj, Review of Economic Studies (2010) 77, 1262–1300, Missing Women: Age and Disease, 7 http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1990/dec/20/more-than-100-million-women-are-missing/ Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81 vis-à-vis men can be seen also in many other parts of the world.
The result is a lower proportion of women than would be the case if they had equal care—in most of Asia and North Africa, and to a lesser extent Latin America.” At first, Sen believed that economic independence would improve women’s lot, but in 2001, after seeing the Indian Census statistics, he amended his original argument to address what he called ‘high tech sexism’ against women.
The advent of cheap and accessible ultrasound technology allowed parents to screen for unwanted female foetuses and eliminate them.

He was surprised to discover that even women wanted to eliminate their daughters.

Sen concluded that education against this bias was the only way to expose and overcome the problem of gendercide.

One such education and awareness campaign is ‘50 Million Missing’ started by Rita Banerji in 2006.8 Banerji campaigns on behalf of Indian women.
According to the World Bank, “…excess female mortality after birth and ‘missing’ girls at birth account every year for an estimated 3.9 million women below the age of 60.

About two-fifths of them are never born, one-fifth goes missing in infancy and childhood, and the remaining two-fifths do so between the ages of 15 and 59.”9 UNFPA and UN Women have recently issued a Report detailing the extent of this issue, “Sex Ratios and Gender Bias Sex Selection.”10 2.5 Surrogacy.
Surrogacy in Australia is governed by various State and Territory Laws, which permit non- commercial surrogacy.

Although commercial enterprises are a criminal offence in Australia, punishable by imprisonment, the Law enables prospective parents to treat children as commodities and denies those children information about their genetic parents, even to the extent of having details about the acquisitioning parents on the birth certificate, not the genetic parents.
Medical tourism is developing into big business.

In Thailand, it is reported to be a $4.5 billion industry11.

In India it is reported to be a US $450 million industry.

8 Rita Banerji, 50 Million Missing, http://50millionmissing.wordpress.com 9 http://go.worldbank.org/GPLFFB9PQ0 10 Sex Ratios and Gender biased Sex Selection”, UNFPA and UN Women, www.unwomenindia.org 11 “Surrogacy scandal hits Thai fertility sector”, The Australian, 11th August 2014.
Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81 Surrogacy breaks down the link between motherhood, reproduction and childbirth.

It also creates a sub-class of trafficked women and babies.

The pain of the poor and the exploited, the psychological damage to the relinquishing mother, the slave-camp-like conditions in which the pregnant women live and the rejection of some less-than-perfect children, in surrogacy situations, needs to be considered.
Children who were the product of a surrogacy arrangement are starting to speak of their pain at being denied part of their heritage.

The video, Breeders: A Subclass of Women?

12produced this year by the Center for Bioethics and Culture (CBC) reveals the dark side of the surrogacy industry.

A proportion of medical tourism, which is not fully quantified, is for surrogacy arrangements.
Commissioning/acquisitioning parents from developed countries purchase the use of the reproductive organs of women from developing countries.

Either ‘traditional’ or gestational surrogacy13is sought.

The former achieves conception through sexual insemination or assisted insemination and the child is the genetic offspring of the birth mother.

Gestational surrogacy transfers embryos formed from eggs and sperm provided by the commissioning parents, or may use the oocytes of the surrogate mother.
One or more resulting embryos are transferred into the surrogate mother’s womb.

Each process generates health concerns for the birth mother and child.

The surrogate mother who is commissioned to provide a child needs expert counselling to enable informed consent.

Medical risks, psychosocial sequelae and legal implications must be fully understood before informed consent can be provided.
The access of women in developing countries to the counselling expertise required in these fields is not assured and the ability to give informed consent is doubtful.

The long term safety of the surrogacy process for the birth mother and child even in developed countries is unknown.14,15The additional burden of cross cultural factors is also unknown.

There are, however, well known immediate risks of hormonal oocyte stimulation (performed when the surrogate mother’s eggs are solicited).
Complications may include haemoconcentration, ascites, polycystic ovary syndrome and intravascular 12 Breeders: A Sub-class of Women?

www.breeders.cbc-network.org 13 RANZCOG Statement on Surrogacy in Australia and New Zealand revised July 2014.

14 Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Consideration of the Gestational Carrier: a Committee Opinion, Fertility and Sterility2013;99(7):1838-41.
15 Children born through reproductive donation: a longitudinal study of psychological adjustment.

J Child Psychology and Psychiatry2013;54(6):653-60.

Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81 coagulation.16These features of the ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome may be less monitored in the locality of the commissioned surrogate.
In addition, the problems which may attend multiple pregnancy – a more frequent outcome of artificial reproductive technology (ART) – may be less monitored and managed in developing countries with higher maternal and neonatal mortality rates.

The increased rate of congenital abnormalities in offspring conceived by ART17will continue to leave some surrogate mothers with babies who have been abandoned by disappointed parents.
Since the most vulnerable women choose to become surrogates they will be more severely affected by the financial costs of caring for these jettisoned children.

Surrogate mothers have an increased need for psychosocial assessment due to the pending separation from their birthed children and anticipatory grief.

They may be less able or less inclined to access appropriate psychosocial supports due to fear of disclosure.
Consideration of antenatal risk factors for postnatal depression18 will also likely be unaddressed.

Women in the Indian Ocean - Asia Pacific region are vulnerable to increased physical, mental, social and financial burdens of commissioned surrogacy arrangements.

There are many issues confronting women in the Indian Ocean - Asia Pacific Region and we are grateful that the Australian government is taking an interest in the welfare of these women.
Jane Munro CWLA National International Secretary Dr. Deirdre Little mbbs dranzcog facrrm CWLA Inc National Bioethics Convenor 16Decherny AH, Nathan L, Goodwin TM et al.

Current Diagnosis and Treatment.

Obstetrics and Gynaecology 10th Ed.

P 950.

17BMJ online Feb 1st 2014.

18 Guiding Principles underpinning Universal Psychosocial Assessment and Depression Screening Programs.

International Marce Society Position Statement 2013.
Human rights issues confronting women and girls in the Indian Ocean – Asia Pacific regionSubmission 81