The National Assembly has approved a long-pending reproductive health bill that bans commercial surrogacy and establishes a clear regulatory system for assisted reproductive technologies.
- •The Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill, sponsored by MP Millie Odhiambo (Suba North, ODM), restricts surrogacy to altruistic arrangements and confines eligibility to Kenyan citizens who are medically certified as unable to conceive naturally.
- •The legislation limits intended parents to those who are widowed, divorced, or single and bars any form of payment to surrogate mothers beyond reimbursement for basic pregnancy-related expenses.
- •The decision closes a long-standing legal vacuum that had allowed unregulated surrogacy arrangements to flourish in the country, leading to disputes over parental rights and the status of children born through assisted reproduction.
The new framework introduces licensing rules for clinics, requirements for written consent from donors, and age restrictions for reproductive material including a ban on sperm donation by minors without formal guardianship approval.
Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman carries and delivers a child on behalf of intended parents who are unable to conceive or sustain a pregnancy themselves.
In practice, it operates through either traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate mother provides her own egg, or gestational surrogacy, where she carries an embryo created from the intended parents’ or donors’ genetic material.
Kenya's New Requirements
Under the bill, only authorised medical professionals may conduct assisted reproduction procedures. Facilities that offer these services will be subject to licensing, renewal and oversight requirements tied to national medical standards. The law mandates consultation with the Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Council (KMPDC) in the allocation and review of licences to reinforce transparency and professional accountability.
The legislation outlines conditions for surrogacy agreements including minimum age requirements for surrogate mothers (set at 25 years old), a mandatory history of prior childbirth, and automatic transfer of parental responsibility to commissioning parents at birth. Agreements must be formalised in writing, witnessed and structured to address the welfare and care of the child.
The bill also delineates practices that are prohibited including creation or use of embryos outside permitted conditions, cloning, and unauthorised handling of reproductive material. Violations of these laws attract fines of up to KSh 5 million or prison terms of up to five years.
The legislation follows years of a legal vacuum that allowed foreign-run agencies to turn Kenya into a low-cost destination for baby commissioning, exploiting the country’s high poverty levels.
In the absence of clear rules, shady operators recruited vulnerable women with minimal safeguards, arranged cross-border pregnancies, and controlled the entire process from housing to documentation, creating conditions ripe for coercion, fraud and trafficking.
The bill seeks to close this gap by replacing an opaque market with a formal system that bars payments, restricts eligibility and subjects clinics to strict licensing while understanding the need to maintain viable solutions for childless couples.
