Dr. Sheela Suryanarayanan, Associate Professor, Centre for Women’s Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of Hyderabad (UoH) spoke at the Goethe-Zentrum, Hyderabad on the Transnational Commercial Surrogacy in India, on 28th July 2022 based on her study in 2009 and the follow-up study in 2019 with surrogate mothers in Gujarat. The session was moderated by Prof. Shahida Murtaza, Director at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.
With reference to feminists Gena Corea (1985) and Andrea Dworkin (1983), who have cautioned that commercial surrogacy market would move to the poorer countries in the third world for a lesser cost, Dr. Suryanarayanan analysed the present transnational surrogacy market movements that exactly follows post-colonial patterns of global inequalities. This racialized and classist body market treats women’s ‘body-space’ as ‘risky’, ‘polluting’ and ‘discardable’. She spoke about the economic, health and emotional impact of commercial surrogacy on surrogate mothers and their children in India. She brought out important intersectionalities of religion, caste, skin colour, alcoholism and indebtedness that play a role in the surrogacy experience.
About University of Hyderabad
The University of Hyderabad is an institute of post-graduate teaching and research. The school was established by an act of the Parliament of India in 1974 as a Central University. Over the years, it has emerged as a top ranking institute of higher education and research in India. The university also offers courses under distance learning programs. The university is a member of the ‘Association of Indian Universities’ (AIU), the ‘Association of Commonwealth Universities’ (ACU) and ‘International Council for Distance Education’. An Academic Staff College has been functioning on the university campus since 1988 under the UGC scheme for improving the standards of teaching in colleges and universities. The college organizes orientation and refresher courses for college and university teachers.
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