http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/exclusive-rise-in-number-of-couples-seeking-wombs-for-hire-abroad-8432820.html
Exclusive: Rise in number of couples seeking 'wombs for hire' abroad
Increase in British couples turning to poor foreign surrogate mothers to have their babies
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Wealthy British couples who cannot have children are increasingly seeking "wombs for hire" from women overseas, according to figures obtained by The Independent.
The number of couples formally registering children born to foreign surrogates has nearly trebled in five years, raising concerns that poor women in developing countries are being exploited by rich Westerners.
"Parental orders" granted following surrogacy – to transfer the child from the surrogate mother to the commissioning parents – have risen from 47 in 2007 to 133 in 2011.
While the figures are still relatively small, experts say they understate the true scale of the trade which is driven by agencies operating in countries such as India, drawn by a lack of red tape and the absence of regulation.
There are parallels with the trade in inter-country adoption 20 years ago, when hundreds of children from impoverished families in eastern Europe and the developing world were "sold" to wealthy foreigners, with few checks on their suitability, they claim.
Commercial surrogacy is permitted in the US and in many other countries including India, where it was legalised in 2002.
But it is banned in Britain and only expenses may be paid – making it difficult for UK couples where neither partner is able to bear children to find women prepared to volunteer for the role.
In 2010 the law was changed to allow gay and lesbian couples and unmarried heterosexual couples to use surrogates for the first time, boosting demand further.
Events such as the Alternative Families Show, which acts as a showcase for surrogacy agencies overseas, regularly draw large crowds. The impact can be seen in the increasing numbers of wealthy British couples who are going abroad where there are fewer restrictions and a surrogate womb can be rented from £10,000 to £20,000. Some do so after trying and failing to have a baby by in-vitro fertilisation, directed by doctors who have been treating them.
"We have clinicians in this country who have links with overseas clinics. That was stopped with international adoption years ago. I don't think the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has been strong enough on this," said Marilyn Crawshaw, senior lecturer in the University of York's department of social policy, who published the figures on parental orders in the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law.
"There is concern about child trafficking. The World Health Organisation held a meeting on this. One report described a surrogacy ring in Thailand in 2011 in which 13 Vietnamese women, seven of them pregnant, had been trafficked for the purpose of acting as surrogates. Other reports have highlighted concerns about the exploitation of Indian surrogates."
Ms Crawshaw said evidence suggested that the number of children born in India to commissioning parents from the UK was "well in excess" of the cases known to official sources, making monitoring very difficult.
"US social workers have warned that the decline in inter-country adoption may be leading to its replacement by global surrogacy as the preferred route for those wanting to build their family with a 'healthy' infant but with no less concerns among professionals as to associated ethical dilemmas and human rights concerns," she said.
Natalie Gamble, a lawyer specialising in surrogacy cases, added: "We have got this phenomenon where people can go overseas and do deals with commercial agencies and then come back and ask for a parental order.
"The law of our land says you cannot buy and sell babies. But the judges end up granting the parental order, with just a rap on the knuckles for the parents, on the grounds that the welfare of the child is paramount.
"When people went overseas to adopt, safeguards were put in place to stop the buying and selling of children. Are we going to have the same problems again with overseas surrogacy?"
Case study: 'It was awkward when the mother had to hand over our twins'
We both found it very hard to keep it together. It was a very emotional time. We could never have imagined it a couple of years ago."
Stephen Hill and his partner Johnathon Busher first held their twin girls in their arms less than 12 hours after their birth in a Delhi hospital last April.
The gay couple, from the West Midlands, had been together for 18 years when they decided they wanted a family.
In 2011, they travelled to India and agreed a contract with a clinic in Delhi where Mr Hill's sperm was used to fertilise an egg from a donor they had selected, and the resulting embryo was implanted in a surrogate mother.
When the twins were born there was an "awkward moment" before the surrogate mother agreed to hand them over, as her husband had been telling medical staff the infants were his own.
"She was reminded that it was a deal and she was fine. She was a little bit too attached and she needed to be reminded," Mr Busher said. "We produced the contract and we were able to take them out of the hospital. We were so happy our feet didn't touch the ground."
Surrogacy laws: Britain and India
Commercial surrogacy
UK – illegal
India – legal
Advertising
UK – not permitted
India – permitted
Enforceable agreement
UK – no
India – yes
Payment to surrogates
UK – expenses only
India – $5,000 to $7,000
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/no-heir-to-run-the-company-why-adult-adoption-is-big-business-in-japan-8432779.html
No heir to run the company? Why adult ‘adoption’ is big business in Japan
Family firms in Japan often rely on adult adoptees to help retain dynastic control. Finding a match has become an industry in itself
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Like many men in Japan, Tsunemaru Tanaka is looking for a wife. Unlike some, he is prepared to sacrifice his name to get one. If all goes well in 2013, he'll find a bride, her prosperous family will adopt him and he'll take their family name. In an ideal world, he'll run their business too. "I think I have a lot of skills to offer the right family," he says.
The 19th-century industrialist Andrew Carnegie famously said that inherited wealth "deadens talents and energies. Business research generally supports the Carnegie thesis: companies controlled by heirs underperform their professionalised competitors. Except, apparently, in Japan.
Japan boasts the world's oldest family-run businesses, the Hoshi Guest House, founded in 717. And the construction company Kongo Gumi was operated for a record-breaking 1,400 years by a succession of heirs until it was taken over in 2006. Many family firms – car-maker Suzuki, Matsui Securities, and giant brewery Suntory – break the rule of steady dynastic decline, or what is sometimes cruelly dubbed the "idiot-son syndrome".
So how do Japanese firms do it? The answer, apparently, is adoption.Last year more than 81,000 people were adopted in Japan, one of the highest rates in the world. Remarkably, more than 90 per cent of those adopted were adults.
The practice of adopting men in their 20s and 30s is used to rescue biologically ill-fated families and ensure a business heir, says Vikas Mehrotra, of the University of Alberta, the lead author of a new paper on the Japanese phenomenon of adult adoptions. "We haven't come across this custom in any other part of the world," he says.
Though the phenomenon has been previously documented, its impact on economic competitiveness has not. Dr Mehrotra's paper finds not only inherited family control still common in Japanese business, but says family firms are "puzzlingly competitive", outperforming otherwise similar professionally managed companies. "These results are highly robust and… suggest family control 'causes' good performance rather than the converse."
Finding suitable heirs, however, is not as simple as it once was. Japan's sliding birthrate has created many one-child families, and while daughters can manage the company back office, the face out front in this still chauvinistic country must be male, says Chieko Date. She is one of dozens of marriage consultants who bring together ambitious young men and the marriageable daughters of business families. Ms Date is proud of her record. "We bring happiness to both sides," she says.
If the meetings go well, the men agree to drop their own surname and be adopted by their new bride's family, becoming both the head of the family and its business. Ms Date's consultancy claims to have brokered 600 of these marriages – known as "mukoyoshi" – over the past decade. "We believe that this cannot be just a business transaction," she says. If the couples don't like each other, the marriage and the business will fail.
Ms Date screens the men carefully, going only for "top-class" candidates. "I've talked to 20,000 men over the past decade and successfully brokered hundreds of marriages, and I haven't heard of a single divorce," she adds. Just in case, the families of prospective wives will often do a deep background check on their future adoptees, to make sure they don't come loaded with debt, and they're not gay.
Remarkably, some families will bypass a biological son for an adoptee if they feel that nature has shortchanged them – a practice that occurs with "some regularity" says Dr Mehrotra.
Could Japan's unique remedy offer lessons to its prickly neighbour China? It seems unlikely. Chinese businessmen who have come across the practice find it "uncivilised".
Family fortunes: Business dynasties
Toyota
Established in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda, above, as a spin-off from his father's weaving company. In 2009, Akio Toyoda, Kiichiro's grandson, pictured, took over as president of the company, which employs 300,734 people worldwide.
Suntory
Founded in 1899 by Shinjiro Torii, below, the brewing giant famous for its whisky is still 90-per-cent owned by the founding family.
Suzuki
Michio Suzuki set up the Suzuki Loom Works during a silk boom in 1909. It is now the ninth largest car-maker in the world. The CEO, Osamu Suzuki, is the fourth adopted son to run the company.
Matsui Securities
A financial company providing online securities trading services, set up in 1931. The company's fourth president, Michio Matsui, was adopted into the family, but this meant ditching his own name.
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