On Monday 26 October 2026, Sow Fertility hosted Beyond Biology: Legal Parenthood and Parental Rights in Hong Kong at Hugill & Ip's offices in Pacific Place. More than 30 parents, parents-to-be, HR and D&I leaders and legal professionals filled the room for an evening on a question many families only face at a stressful moment: who does Hong Kong law actually recognise as a parent?
The panel brought together Kajal Aswani, Partner at Hugill & Ip, and Azan Marwah, Barrister at Pantheon Chambers, who has appeared in several of the cases shaping this area of law. The discussion was moderated by Dawn Chan, Founder and CEO of Sow Fertility.
"Most people plan carefully for the medical steps of building a family. Far fewer plan for the legal ones," said Dawn. "Families are built in many different ways, and the law doesn't always keep up. We wanted to bring these questions to the people who know."
Legal parenthood is what gives a parent the right to consent to medical treatment, enrol a child in school, apply for travel documents, and pass on an inheritance.
In Hong Kong, the woman who gives birth is always the legal mother, and her husband is the legal father if he consented to treatment, whether or not there is a genetic link. A donor at a licensed clinic is not a legal parent.
A foreign birth certificate or court order naming you as parents is not automatically recognised when you come home, and recognition varies from country to country.
Married couples can apply to the Hong Kong court for a parental order, which treats the child as born to the couple and leads to an amended birth certificate. The application must be made within six months of the birth. An adoption order gives full parental status for life, and foreign adoption orders are generally recognised in Hong Kong, subject to where the family was living when the order was made.
Recent cases have found that leaving the non-birth mother in a same-sex couple without legal status is unconstitutional, but the remedy is still before the courts.
In the meantime, the panel urged couples not to wait for the law to catch up. A guardianship order, put in place soon after birth, can give a parent without legal status the rights and responsibilities they need. Families should also be careful with sole adoption, which can extinguish the other parent's rights.
Kajal's advice for families: get legal advice before treatment begins, not after the birth. Azan's: the courts will always put the child's welfare first, but don't rely on leniency. Do your due diligence early, keep good records, and be truthful with the court and with Immigration.
Making or updating a will, and naming a testamentary guardian, is one of the simplest steps any family can take. Older family trusts are worth checking too, as dated wording can exclude children born through assisted reproduction or adoption.
Legal parenthood doesn't stay at home. It shows up at work in dependant visas, parental leave and how benefit plans define a "child", "spouse" or "parent". The panel's suggestions for HR and D&I teams:
- Review how your policies define family, so they cover parents whose status is not yet recognised in law.
- Make parental leave role-based (primary and secondary carer) rather than tied to gender or giving birth.
- Support dependant visa applications based on guardianship, or while an order is pending.
- Check that your benefits work for every kind of family your people actually have.
A heartfelt thank you to Kajal Aswani and the Hugill & Ip team for hosting us, to Azan Marwah for sharing his insights from the courts, and to everyone who joined us and asked such thoughtful questions.
We've put together a key insights worksheet from the panel. If you'd like a copy, get in touch at hello@sowfertility.com.
If you lead HR, benefits or D&I and want your family-building support to work for every kind of family, including rainbow families, we'd love to talk.
This article is general information only and is not legal advice. The law in this area is changing. Please seek up-to-date advice from a qualified professional about your own situation.
