1. Motherhood for Sale?
Anna Kerr, Principal Solicitor, Feminist Legal Clinic Inc. AMIRCI Conference July 2019, University of Sydney
Beyond Mothering Myths? Motherhood in an Age of Neoliberalism and Individualisation

2. Capitalism’s numbing use of violent imagery and extensive sexual objectification of women and girls

3. Things women have done to please men. . .

4. The sale of women’s bodies for the sexual pleasure of males has become increasingly socially acceptable.

5. Robust trade in both women and their children.

6. Failure to recognise Maternal Rights Hurts mothers & children
There is decreasing recognition of the importance of the biological mother to the child
Despite a succession of apologies to parents who have had children removed, government fails to recognise that this is cruel and unusual punishment to both mother and child.
There is inadequate efforts to support vulnerable women to retain care of their babies.
Instead wealth is emerging as the main determinant of who is best qualified to parent .

7. Baby Gammy Case
Couple took healthy baby and left down syndrome twin with the Thai mother to raise
Father is a convicted sex offender (22 child sex offences) who lied in his evidence.
The child protection authorities intervened to obtain orders for the child’s safety.
Despite all this the Family Court made orders in the couples favour rather than the Thai mother.

8. Baby Factory Case
a 24-year-old Japanese businessman, Shigeta Mitsutoki, fathered 15 children using Thai surrogates.
Despite suspicions, there was no evidence that the millionaire was breaking any Thai or Japanese laws and he was allowed to keep the babies.

9. Thriving market in reproductive prostitution has taken hold now driven by gay males.
Internationally Australians are the biggest customers of surrogacy services.
There are calls to lift legal restraints on these commercial arrangements.

10. Case of Mark Newton and Peter Truong
Paid a Russian woman $8000 to be their surrogate in 2005.
Newton and Truong gave an interview to an ABC reporter in 2010 about their battle to have a child as a gay couple.
The abuse began just days after the child’s birth.
The couple travelled the world, offering him up to men and recording the abuse and uploading the footage to an international syndicate known as the Boy Lovers Network.
Now sentenced to 40 years in US prison.

11. Campaign for Maternal Rights
There is an urgent need for recognition of maternal rights in both Australian domestic law and international human rights covenants to slow this rapid descent into an Atwoodian dystopia.

12. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Exclusive use of the male pronouns
Refers to “man” and “mankind”
- ”Spirit of brotherhood”
Fails to recognise rights of motherhood
Groups mothers with children as needing special care and protection.

13. UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
Inadequate protection of maternal rights
Women only have “equal” rights with men in relation to children
Failure to acknowledge greater physical, psychological and economic impact that childbearing has on women.
Critical bond between mother and child is ignored in human rights law which instead enshrines the “family” as the fundamental unit of society.
Ignoring differences results in inequity.

14. The Family Court – the epicentre of distress for women and children
Children are used as bargaining chips in negotiations over money and property.
Men’s rights groups advise men to request more contact with their children as a strategy for reducing liability for child support and to secure an advantage in the property division.
Motherhood is being traded by unscrupulous men with no care for the human rights of women or children and sometimes with the exlplicit purpose of harming them.

15. International Declaration for Women’s Sex Based Rights
Launched in March 2019 in New York to coincide with CSW.
To be added as a signatory, please visit