13 March 2017

At the end of last month, Chou Bun Eng, secretary of state with the Interior Ministry and vice chair of the national committee to combat human trafficking, said that foreign couples whose babies were carried by Cambodian surrogates would be allowed to leave the country with their children under a temporary exit plan awaiting approval from the prime minister.

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/son- ... st-126432/

The situation has not evolved since the possibility of a temporary exit plan was announced two weeks ago; the PM has yet to approve it. The Australian broker, Ms Davis-Charles is still awaiting trial in Prey Sar.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/exit ... al-125888/

Green Light For Surrogate Babies to Exit Cambodia
April 3, 2017

Nearly six months after the Health Ministry banned surrogate pregnancies, Prime Minister HE has approved an exit strategy allowing babies born to Cambodian surrogates to leave the country.

The move may end a long wait for foreign couples, some of whom have resorted to trying to take their babies out of Cambodia by traveling through Vietnam, according to an industry expert.

Chou Bun Eng, secretary of state with the Interior Ministry and vice chair of the national committee to combat human trafficking, confirmed on Sunday that Mr. HE had signed off on the strategy, more than a month after it was put forward for his approval...

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/gree ... ia-127425/

Few takers so far for surrogacy exit policy
Tue, 25 April 2017

Nearly three weeks after announcing a way for intended parents to exit the country with babies born to surrogate mothers, few applications appear to have been submitted to the courts to begin the process.

Under the protocol, intended parents must submit a formal request, birth certificate of the child and a DNA test to a court for approval. Ey Rin, the administrative chief at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, confirmed that the court had yet to receive any applications, as did court officials in Takeo and Kampong Speu.

One intended parent, who is preparing the documentation and asked to remain anonymous, complained yesterday about the process involved in applying. “I think it takes too long and the costs for a lawyer and DNA tests are crazy,” he said. “A lot of people have financial problems now because of the ban and their stay in Cambodia . . . [That’s] money that was to give the children a good life.”...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/f ... xit-policy

For some reason the foreigners who used Cambodian surrogate mothers do not trust the government's offer to exit officially. The adoptive parents are taking their surrogate babies out of Cambodia by a number of ways and means, including the now well-known route via Vietnam:

Taking Baby Home: a Family’s Surrogacy Story
2 May 2017

Nicholas and his partner are among several couples who sought to smuggle their babies out of Cambodia, according to Nicholas’ father, who spoke on his son’s behalf. They all asked not to be identified by their real names out of fear of legal reprisals.
In telephone interviews and via email, he described several tumultuous months that followed the implementation of the ban. With no clear instructions from the Interior Ministry, and speculation that it could take months to receive such guidance, foreign couples with newborns or surrogate babies on the way became desperate...
Full article: https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/taki ... ry-128960/

Cambodia's "exit plan" to allow surrogate babies to leave the country is still being discussed by ministry officials. They have agreed to discuss things further then meet for further discussion in two weeks.
Meanwhile foreign parents, impatient with slow-moving officialdom, are taking the babies out of Cambodia illegally.

Surrogacy exit plan still in works
15 May 2017
An exit strategy for babies born to Cambodian surrogates is still being ironed out by government officials, a month after guidelines to facilitate their safe passage from the Kingdom were announced.

Seemingly adding yet another layer to what some intended parents have deemed an already-complicated bureaucratic process, Cambodian ministry officials met on Friday to discuss their “procedures” for processing applications.

The government laid out a plan last month to allow babies already born via surrogacy to leave – a plan that involved arranging a DNA test, a court appearance, a birth certificate, a passport and trips to various ministries.
Chou Bun Eng, vice chair of the Committee for Counter Trafficking in Persons, yesterday said officials from the ministries of interior and foreign affairs would develop their own processes, which would then be discussed in two weeks to ensure their strategies were coherent.

Several parents have already whisked their children across borders without going through the Cambodian court system, which Bun Eng said was “illegal” and amounted to “human trafficking”.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/s ... till-works

The two Cambodian women and the Australian woman continue to be detained without trial after their hearing was postponed indefinitely yesterday.

Surrogacy hearing delayed
19 May 2017
Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday extended the detention of two Cambodians and one Australian arrested over alleged human trafficking in surrogacy cases.
Judge Suo Linna postponed a planned trial because of the absence of witnesses and police who laid the complaint.

Cambodians Pich Rithy, 28, and nurse Sambath Chan Chakriya, 35, and Australian Tammy Davis-Charles, 49, have been charged with being an “intermediary between an adoptive parent and pregnant woman” and “fraudulent requests for documents”.

Ms Linna said the hearing was postponed because the court wanted to find the truth and justice for all parties in the case.
“The court wanted all relevant parties, the accused, witnesses and plaintiff, to attend the hearing and talk face-to-face,” she added.

She did not set a date for a new hearing...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/38523/ ... g-delayed/

How Asia’s surrogate mothers became a cross-border business
4 June 2017

Clampdowns on surrogacy in Cambodia, Thailand and India have led to the emergence of complex, cross-border operations that put women, children and would-be parents at greater risk than before...

http://www.scmp.com/week-asia/society/a ... r-business

The trial began yesterday:
Australian Denies Key Surrogacy Role at Trial
June 14, 2017

In the country’s first case of its kind, an Australian woman accused of being at the center of a surrogacy operation in Cambodia on Tuesday in court described a complex and sprawling commercial network in which she claimed to be just a minor player, with a broker in Bangkok pulling most of the strings.

Tammy Davis-Charles, 49, and two former Cambodian co-workers, Samrith Chakrya, 35, and Pech Rithy, 28, face charges of fraudulently requesting documents and acting as intermediaries between an adoptive parent and a pregnant woman.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/aust ... al-131315/

The Australian nurse at the centre of a surrogacy case went on trial in Phnom Penh yesterday. She denied all charges but agreed that she provided health care to Cambodian women who were paid $10,000 each to carry babies for foreign couples.

Tammy Davis-Charles, 49, was arrested in late November with Cambodians Penh Rithy, 28, and Sambath Chan Chakriya, 35, a nurse at Preah Sihanouk Hospital in Phnom Penh.

The trio stand accused of finding Cambodian surrogates to carry children for foreign couples at Fertility Solutions PGD clinic in Phnom Penh, in the first case of its kind since the practice was banned.

Ms Davis-Charles admitted she had been working in Cambodia since 2015, after commercial surrogacy was outlawed in Thailand, where she was previously based.
Cambodia moved to outlaw the surrogacy industry, which critics say exploits poor women, at the end of last year, after the ban in Thailand pushed the business across its borders.

The trio have been charged with faking documents to obtain birth certificates for the newborns...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/39315/ ... -innocent/

There is publicity in Australia about the woman on trial for surrogacy. They talk about paying for birth certificates, is there such a thing? I thought that there was only the family book. How did the embassy issue visas for babies that had Khmer mothers, how were they allowed to leave the country?