Seminar on surrogacy, child abduction

New Delhi, Sep 20 (IANS) A seminar on the issues of cross-border child abduction, surrogacy and marital discord with respect to the countries of the South Asian region was organised by the South Asian University (SAU) on Tuesday.

The one-day seminar was inaugurated by Justice B.S. Chauhan, Chairman of Law Commission of India, who said the "human beings are not commodities", referring to the state of affairs in surrogacy.

According to Chauhan, the problem becomes even more daunting when there are no laws to deal with these issues.

A panel chaired by South Asian University President Kavita A. Sharma also discussed cross border Non Residential Indians marriages and divorce issues, inter-country child abduction, adoption, Hague conventions and the proposed Surrogacy Law in India.

The panel included legal experts such as Kirti Singh, Anil Malhotra, Luther Rangreji and Govindaraj Hegde.

Narinder Singh, member of United Nationals International Law Commission, concluded the talk.

SAU is an international university established, funded and maintained by the governments of the eight member nations of South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC).

The SAARC member countries are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. SAU started its operations in the academic year 2010.