Baby market is an industry without a law. Nigeria now has over 174 IVF clinics nationwide. An estimated 18,850 IVF cycles were carried out in 2023 alone. Yet, there is no dedicated law governing assisted reproductive medicine and technology in Nigeria.
The contract specified nutrition, hospital visits, movement restrictions, and payment milestones.
It said little about what would happen if the surrogate changed her mind.
It said nothing about what would happen if the commissioning couple divorced before the child was born.
And it was entirely silent on the question that would later become central: whose child, in law, was the baby?
She had found the clinic on Instagram. After three years of failed conception, she and her husband had exhausted their savings. The clinic promised IVF for ₦1.5 million. They paid in instalments. Both cycles failed.
When they asked for their medical records, the clinic stalled. When they demanded a refund, the director stopped answering. They discovered no regulatory body had accredited the facility — because no regulatory body exists for this industry.
Their story is not unique. It is the predictable consequence of a market that has boomed ahead of its laws.
Baby Market: An Industry Without A Law
Nigeria now has over 174 IVF clinics nationwide. An estimated 18,850 IVF cycles were carried out in 2023 alone. A single cycle costs ₦870,000 to ₦1.76 million.
Surrogacy arrangements run as high as ₦12.5 million. Infertility affects an estimated 25 per cent of Nigerian couples, and the stigma — borne disproportionately by women — drives many to pay whatever they can.
Yet, there is no dedicated law governing assisted reproductive technology in Nigeria.
The National Health Act 2014 contains minimal provisions on ART. The Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill 2016 passed second reading in 2017 but was abandoned. The Surrogacy Bill 2024, introduced by Honourable Olamijuwonlo Alao-Akala, passed the second reading in October 2024 and remains pending.
The industry operates in a legal fog.
The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) does not license fertility clinics specifically. The Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health (AFRH) has developed practice guidelines, but these are not legally binding. Only Lagos State has taken active regulatory steps, unveiling ART guidelines in May 2019. The rest of the country relies on persuasion and reputation.
The Surrogacy Bill 2024: Promise And Gaps
The pending Bill proposes to establish the Nigeria Surrogacy Regulatory Commission. It restricts surrogacy to altruistic arrangements, requires surrogates to be at least 21, and mandates voluntary, written, notarised agreements. Violators face a ₦1 million fine or five years’ imprisonment.
But the Bill contains significant gaps. It restricts eligibility to married couples and certified infertile single persons. It prohibits commercial surrogacy without defining reasonable compensation versus prohibited commercialisation — a distinction critical where economic desperation drives reproductive labour. It offers no post-pregnancy support for surrogates. It is silent on legal parentage. And a ₦1 million fine is unlikely to deter organised exploitation.
When Reproduction Becomes Commercialised
The absence of regulation creates fertile ground for exploitation. A woman who agrees to carry a pregnancy because poverty leaves her with few meaningful alternatives and occupies a difficult space between autonomy and coercion.
This is where reproductive medicine risks drifting toward commodification. The deeper concern is that human reproduction itself may begin to resemble a commercial transaction in which the bodies of women and the lives of children become subject to market logic. The womb cannot be treated simply as a site of commercial service delivery. Nor should children be viewed merely as the successful outcome of a paid arrangement.
The Baby Market Connection
In the absence of law, criminality thrives. Across Southern Nigeria — Abia, Lagos, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo — facilities disguised as orphanages and clinics operate as “baby factories.” Security agencies have shut down over 200 such facilities in the past five years.
Young women, often minors from poor backgrounds, are lured with promises of employment, impregnated through coercion, held until delivery, and their infants sold for ₦1 million to ₦2 million.
These are not isolated crimes. They are an organised network exploiting the same desperation the fertility industry serves. In Nigeria’s legal vacuum, the line between legitimate services and criminal exploitation is dangerously thin.
The Child At The Centre
Perhaps, the most neglected figure in discussions about surrogacy is the child. The child born through assisted reproduction is not merely the subject of a contract. The child is a rights-bearing person.
Questions concerning identity, nationality, inheritance, custody, and parental status directly affect the welfare of children born through these arrangements. Without clear legal frameworks, disputes surrounding parentage may leave children trapped within uncertainty created entirely by adults.
The Law Reform Commission advises that commissioning parents should formally adopt their own child to prevent the surrogate from returning to claim it — a legal fiction that protects no one and confuses everyone.
The Dignity Imperative
Section 34 of the Constitution guarantees the dignity of the human person. But the Constitution does not explicitly recognise reproductive health rights. Section 17 directs state policy toward adequate medical facilities, but the provisions of Chapter II are non-justiciable — they cannot be enforced in court.
South Africa’s Constitution explicitly guarantees the right to make decisions concerning reproduction, security and control over one’s body, and reproductive health-care services. Nigeria’s constitutional silence is not neutrality. It is a deficit that leaves citizens unprotected in one of life’s most vulnerable domains.
The dignity violation is multidimensional. The surrogate who bears a child for ₦12.5 million, with no guarantee of post-delivery support and no clarity on her parental status, is not exercising autonomy. She is surviving in a market that treats her labour as disposable. The couple who pays ₦5 million for IVF and receives negligent treatment discovers their desperation has made them prey.
The gender dimension compounds the injustice. Male factor infertility is equally prevalent, yet stigma falls disproportionately on women. A constitutional framework silent on reproductive rights, combined with cultural practices tying women’s worth to motherhood, creates a dignity-degrading environment where women are simultaneously pressured to conceive and blamed when they cannot.
Towards Meaningful Reform
Meaningful steps must be taken to stop the booming baby market. These steps include:
First, the National Assembly must pass the Surrogacy Bill 2024, but amended to define reasonable compensation, clarify legal parentage, mandate post-delivery support, and increase penalties.
Second, the Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill must be revived and enacted to license clinics, regulate embryo storage, govern donor anonymity, and create a register of accredited practitioners.
Third, the Federal Government should establish a national regulatory body for reproductive medicine — modeled on the UK’s Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority — with power to inspect, license, and sanction clinics nationwide.
Fourth, the constitutional framework must evolve. Nigeria should explicitly recognise reproductive autonomy and the right to reproductive healthcare services as justiciable constitutional rights.
Fifth, law enforcement must dismantle baby factory networks while addressing root causes: poverty, educational gaps, and the stigma that drives supply and demand.
The Bottom Line
Medicine now allows conception beyond the traditional boundaries of biology, distance, and even pregnancy itself. The law cannot pretend otherwise.
But when reproduction becomes technologically possible without becoming legally regulated, uncertainty begins at the very beginning of human life. And few areas of law demand greater moral seriousness than that.
A society that permits a booming industry to operate without dedicated law is not regulating medicine. It is managing a market. A society that criminalises baby factories but fails to create legal alternatives for desperate couples and women is not protecting dignity. It is displacing demand into darker channels.
And a constitution silent on reproductive rights while its citizens gamble their savings, bodies, and futures on unregulated promises is not neutral. It is complicit.
The question is not whether assisted reproductive technology should exist in Nigeria. It already does.
The real question is whether Nigeria will continue to allow one of the most sensitive areas of human existence to operate within regulatory silence — while women, children, and families navigate consequences the law has barely begun to confront.
Know Your Rights
There is currently no dedicated federal law governing IVF, surrogacy, or egg donation in Nigeria. Be cautious when entering fertility arrangements.
The Surrogacy Bill 2024 is pending. Until enacted, surrogacy agreements are governed by general contract law and carry significant uncertainty.
The MDCN does not maintain a separate register of fertility clinics. Verify credentials through the Association for Fertility and Reproductive Health.
If you suffer harm from a fertility clinic, you may have remedies under the law of negligence. Document all payments, procedures, and communications.
If you suspect any baby factory activity, report immediately to NAPTIP and the police.
•Sanu is a Nigerian lawyer and health law scholar. This column breaks down complex health laws for everyday Nigerians.
