Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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‘Rent-a-Womb’: Black Market for Surrogate Pregnancies Flourishes in Cambodia
Asia & Pacific
00:10 22.12.2018
n Cambodia, a surrogate motherhood industry has exploded in recent years. Despite the government’s attempts to control it, the lure of cash and Phnom Penh’s inefficiency in providing a legal alternative have allowed the practice to continue.

Surrogate motherhood is banned in a number of countries, but poor regulation in Southeast Asian countries, along with porous borders and large vulnerable populations of poor working women, have created opportunities for the practice to continue despite official bans. When the payoff is several times one's annual salary, the risk can often seem worth the potential reward.

China's One-Child Policy

The driving force behind commercial surrogacy — when a woman is paid to bear a child that becomes the buyer's upon birth — has by and large been the ending of China's one-child policy in 2016. Beginning in 1979, Beijing enforced a strict allowance of only one child per family in an effort to calm the burgeoning birth rate. By 2016, Beijing's methods had been an unqualified success, reducing the country's fertility rate from about six births per woman in the 1960s to 1.5 by the 2000s, according to CNN. As a consequence, the number of Chinese citizens over the age of 65 tripled.

On the other side of the coin, however, is the aging population of women whose best mothering years fell during the period between 1979 and 2016. It's this group, AFP reports, that's driving the hunger for child surrogacy in Southeast Asia, where the practice is significantly less regulated than in China, where the practice is banned outright.

Vulnerable Working Women

In Cambodia, couples are willing to pay a surrogacy agency between $40,000 to $100,000 to have a child, although the surrogate mother will perhaps only get $10,000 to $15,000 of that.

In a country where the annual household income per capita is only $1,228, according to CEIC data, that kind of money can make an enormous difference in quality of life. One surrogate mother told AFP she had over $4,000 worth of debt, and her garment factory job paid just $153 a month.

Chou Bun Eng, permanent vice chair of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking, told AFP that factory workers are especially vulnerable and that recruiters specifically target them.
https://sputniknews.com/asia/2018122210 ... -Cambodia/
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Eleven Surrogate Mothers Released on Bail
Kong Meta May 10, 2019 8:17 am
Eleven surrogate mothers who were jailed while pregnant in November have been released on bail, a senior Interior Ministry official said on Thursday.

Nouth Savna, spokesman for the ministry’s general department of prisons, told VOD that the surrogates had been freed after agreeing to keep their babies themselves.

“They promised to raise the babies, so now they are no longer at the prison. I don’t know any further details,” Savna said.

Khot Dara, the chief of Correctional Center 2, where the women were held, said the 11 had been released ahead of Khmer New Year in April.

Three of them had delivered their babies at the National Maternal and Child Health Center during their incarcerations, Dara said.
https://en.vodhotnews.com/eleven-surrog ... d-on-bail/
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

Post by Clutch Cargo »

This is such a sad outcome for these khmer women...a choice between staying in prison or released on the proviso they keep the child. Now they're faced with the burden of raising a child in presumably conditions of poverty which was the original reason for them wanting to be surrogates. All thanks to this Chinese gang, their customers and the legacy of the PRC's one child policy.
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Good read:
Cambodian surrogates face an impossible choice — forced motherhood, or years in prison
Now, due to stop-gate measures enacted by Cambodian authorities late last year intended to act as a deterrent to the practice of surrogacy, Phalla is among dozens of women forced to raise the child they bore. If she doesn't, she faces up to 20 years in prison for human trafficking.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-12/ ... e/11086640

The Cambodian authorities are not very sensitive to the women's plight.
But Chou Bun Eng, from the National Committee for Counter Trafficking, has said surrogates are not victims but instead accomplices who "hide" children in the womb in order to smuggle them across borders.

"[They] bring or give the baby to traffickers ... so it seems like they are the ones who join activities with the perpetrators," she said.

When asked about Cambodian women raising children who were not biologically theirs, she said a pregnant woman who gives birth is considered the mother.
Link above
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

Post by markd »

how do the intended parent/s even find these so called commercial surrogacy agencies if theyre illegal.

its not like some tuktuk dude 'ganga sir', 'girl sir', 'baby sir'?
thru shit to more shit
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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markd wrote: Sun May 12, 2019 10:56 pm how do the intended parent/s even find these so called commercial surrogacy agencies if theyre illegal.

its not like some tuktuk dude 'ganga sir', 'girl sir', 'baby sir'?
Specialized agencies.

Cambodian surrogate mothers freed after agreeing to keep babies; will be prosecuted if they sell them
Published 1 hour ago

PHNOM PENH (AFP) - Eleven women allegedly paid to be surrogate mothers have been released on bail after agreeing to keep the babies, Cambodia's trafficking czar said on Wednesday (May 15), as the country seeks to regulate the womb-for-hire trade.

The women were charged in November with human trafficking and acting as intermediaries for surrogacy agents, after they were discovered in a raid on a house in the capital Phnom Penh.

They have been in custody since the raid, with some giving birth behind bars.

Cambodia issued a snap ban on commercial surrogacy in 2016 after neighbouring Thailand pulled the plug on the trade the previous year - putting an abrupt end to a thriving industry for hopeful parents - many from Australia and the United States.

An Australian nurse who ran a surrogacy clinic was jailed for 18 months, and quietly released last year after the term was served.

But demand for commercial surrogacy remains high after China eased its one-child policy and shadow markets in Cambodia continue to offer the service.

According to an agency, desperate couples - mostly from China - are willing to pay between US$40,000 (S$54,700) and US$100,000 to surrogacy agents to find a Cambodian woman who can carry their child in her womb.

The 11 women arrested in November refused to tell the authorities who they were carrying the babies for, according to Chou Bun Eng, vice-president of the National Anti-Human Trafficking Committee.

"They were released on bail last month after they promised not to give up their babies," she told AFP.

But the charges against them stand and the women could be prosecuted at any time if "they sell the babies", she said, adding that a draft surrogacy law is still under discussion, and could see the trade formally outlawed.
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-as ... secuted-if
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Cambodian women face surrogacy charges after Vietnam births
By SOPHENG CHEANG, yesterday (19 July 2019)

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — Three Cambodian women have been charged with violating surrogacy and human trafficking laws after they gave birth to babies they delivered to Chinese nationals in Vietnam, a court official said Friday.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Ei Rin said the women, aged 31 and 32, are being detained pending further investigation after being charged on Thursday.

Chhiv Phally, the director of the Interior Ministry’s Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department, said the three women were detained by Vietnamese police and returned to Cambodia after they illegally crossed into the country to deliver their children to Chinese nationals for $8,000 per child, reported the English-language Phnom Penh Post newspaper.

Cambodia’s anti-surrogacy law carries a penalty of one to six months in prison, while the human trafficking charge, involving crossing borders, is punishable by 15 to 20 years’ imprisonment.

The anti-surrogacy law was intended to target intermediaries between parents and surrogates, but in the absence of a more appropriate law, has also been applied against women who carry surrogate pregnancies and give birth. The government has said it is drafting a new law to cover surrogacy, but it is not known when it will be ready.
https://apnews.com/09f362286b524712a60431be5502e09c
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

July 25, 2019
Latest surrogacy case a new breed
The National Committee for Counter Trafficking yesterday said it has no plan to seek bail for three women placed in pre-trial detention after they were charged over their involvement in a surrogacy business.

The three women are currently detained in Prey Sar prison after Phnom Penh Municipal Court alleged that they acted as surrogate mothers and one of them delivered a child and sent the child to Chinese nationals in Vietnam.

NCCT vice chairman Chou Bun Eng yesterday said all three were surrogates, and one of them was also a broker. Ms Bun Eng said although the NCCT has intervened in the past, it will not do so this time.

“We will not take any action on this case because it’s different from previous cases,” she said. “The three women clearly knew it was illegal, but they were still involved in it.”

“This is a new kind of crime,” Ms Bun Eng added. “Pregnant women are brought to a neighbouring country to deliver children.”
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50627011/l ... new-breed/
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

UPDATE: Chinese Surrogate Boss Appears in Court
Image
Phnom Penh, Cambodia News: Phnom Penh Municipal Court convened this morning, 24 October 2019, to judge a case where Cambodian women were being paid to be surrogate mothers by a Chinese organization.
The original arrests were made on 21 June 2018 in a villa in Phnom Penh's Russey Keo district. At the time, 36 pregnant Cambodian women were taken into custody, as well as a Chinese man, Liu Quang, who appeared to be the manager of the operation.
Image
ImagePhnom Penh, 2018

Today Liu Quang appeared in court accused of being the mastermind of the surrogacy business, along with six Cambodians accused of assisting him. They will be charged according to Article 16 of the Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Intermediary between Adoption and Surrogate Women in accordance with Article 332 of the Penal Code.
Image
The surrogate mothers have been released, presumably with an agreement not to sell their babies. Each one of them was expecting to be paid US$10,000 by the Chinese man, on behalf of a surrogacy company organising the illegal traffic of surrogate babies from Cambodia to China.
Image

However, Ms. Sylinna, President of the Trial Chamber of the Phnom Penh Municipal Court who presided over the hearing this morning, decided that the case will be adjourned until the end of November because three of the accused had no lawyers. To be continued.
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

UPDATE 4 March 2020
Original story: newsworthy/police-raid-house-surrogate- ... 20903.html

Authorities lose track of four babies born to surrogate mothers
4 March 2020
Authorities have been unable to get in touch with four Cambodian surrogate mothers who were released from detention after agreeing to keep their babies rather than hand them over to clients in China, a Social Affairs Ministry official said.

The official, anti-human trafficking department director Prom Sakhorn, said authorities feared that the women may have given up their babies to the intended parents.

The four women were among 32 surrogate mothers arrested in Russei Keo district in June 2018, and released on bail in December that year. The government banned the surrogacy trade in 2016 as demand increased for Cambodian women to give birth to babies intended for overseas couples.

“Our minister is really concerned about it,” Sakhorn said. “We don’t think they could leave Cambodia; we are trying to find them.”

Border police have been informed and are looking out for people crossing the border with young infants, she said.

“We are very worried that they could give the children to the intended parents. That is why we keep looking for them.”

Sakhorn said the women were no longer at their registered accommodations, and their relatives told officers they did not know where they had gone.

“Those women lived in a rented room, so when they leave it is hard to find them,” she said.

Most surrogate mothers released on bail worked in garment factories, so social workers visited them on weekends to stay in touch with them and check on the health of the children, she added.

“We provide counseling to the women about how to take care of the babies, and whether something they have done is not correct,” she said.

Chou Bun Eng, deputy head of the ministry’s National Committee to Counter Human Trafficking, said the women had been missing for about two months.
https://cambojanews.com/authorities-los ... e-mothers/
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