A Hong Kong High Court has granted parenting rights to a married local couple for two boys born through surrogacy in mainland China, despite commercial surrogacy being illegal in both regions. The couple, a 61-year-old husband and his 59-year-old wife, arranged for two surrogates in Shenzhen in July 2023 to carry embryos created with the husband's sperm and donor eggs. The boys were born in Shenzhen by caesarean section in 2024. The couple approached the court after failing to secure identification documents for the children. Authorities denied the paperwork because the wife was not the birth mother, although both parents are Hong Kong permanent residents. The wife was also unable to legally register as the mother in mainland China after a Shenzhen court rejected her case due to the commercial surrogacy. A lawyer noted that this ruling might not create a legal precedent, as surrogacy cases differ widely in their facts. The court accepted that the couple was simply unaware that their surrogacy arrangement was illegal. This marks a rare court approval of parenting rights related to mainland surrogacy by Hong Kong authorities.