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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Cambodia Police Arrest 5 in Raid on Surrogacy Operation
June 25, 2018
HONG KONG — Five people in Cambodia were arrested on charges of human trafficking after the police found 33 pregnant women during a raid on an illegal surrogacy operation, the local news media reported Monday, highlighting how the practice has persisted in the country despite a 2016 ban...

But [Australian surrogacy NGO founder] Mr. Everingham said Chinese agencies had been taking clients offshore for surrogacy over the past six or seven years, partly because of high rates of infertility in China and the recent relaxation of that country’s one-child policy, which has made many couples newly eligible to have a second child. He said that the Chinese agencies had long been willing to operate under the radar in Cambodia.

And despite the 2016 ban, he added, surrogates are also still being flown into Cambodia from other countries, including the United States, for in vitro fertilization because it brings down the overall cost of surrogacy for prospective parents to about $110,000 from $135,000. He said the procedures were typically carried out in Cambodia by visiting foreign doctors who rent facilities.

Mr. Keo Thea [anti-trafficking police chief] told The Post that the women had been transferred to the care of Phnom Penh’s Social Affairs Department. But Chou Bun Eng, the vice chairwoman of Cambodia’s National Committee for Counter Trafficking, said that they might eventually face charges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/worl ... -raid.html
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Mon Jun 25, 2018 10:17 pm Cambodia Police Arrest 5 in Raid on Surrogacy Operation
June 25, 2018
HONG KONG — Five people in Cambodia were arrested on charges of human trafficking after the police found 33 pregnant women during a raid on an illegal surrogacy operation, the local news media reported Monday, highlighting how the practice has persisted in the country despite a 2016 ban...

But [Australian surrogacy NGO founder] Mr. Everingham said Chinese agencies had been taking clients offshore for surrogacy over the past six or seven years, partly because of high rates of infertility in China and the recent relaxation of that country’s one-child policy, which has made many couples newly eligible to have a second child. He said that the Chinese agencies had long been willing to operate under the radar in Cambodia.

And despite the 2016 ban, he added, surrogates are also still being flown into Cambodia from other countries, including the United States, for in vitro fertilization because it brings down the overall cost of surrogacy for prospective parents to about $110,000 from $135,000. He said the procedures were typically carried out in Cambodia by visiting foreign doctors who rent facilities.

Mr. Keo Thea [anti-trafficking police chief] told The Post that the women had been transferred to the care of Phnom Penh’s Social Affairs Department. But Chou Bun Eng, the vice chairwoman of Cambodia’s National Committee for Counter Trafficking, said that they might eventually face charges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/worl ... -raid.html


Question,,, Will Cambodia's place on the list of countries involved in trafficking go down be cause statistics will show more trafficking ,, or will it go up the list because they are doing something about trafficking ?
Cambodia,,,, Don't fall in love with her.
Like the spoilt child she is, she will not be happy till she destroys herself from within and breaks your heart.
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Human trafficking charge added to Cambodian surrogacy case
Yesterday [28 June 2018]

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) — A Cambodian court spokesman says five people arrested last week for providing commercial surrogacy services have also been charged with human trafficking.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Ly Sophana said four Cambodian women and a Chinese man were formally charged Thursday with two counts of “The Act of Selling, Buying or Exchanging a Person for Cross-border Transfer,” which is punishable by seven to 15 years in prison. He provided no details of the charge, which amounts to human trafficking.

The five also were charged with providing surrogacy services, which were outlawed in 2016 as Cambodia was becoming a popular destination for would-be foreign parents seeking women to give birth to their children. That offense in punishable by one to six months in prison.
https://apnews.com/f3f544f97d7546f897e318a6d2367671
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Court Orders to Detain 33 Women on Charge of Surrogacy
06/07/18 20:19
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(sic) Phnom Penh (FN), July 6 - Investigating Judge Kor Vandy, on Thursday, ordered to temporarily detain 33 Cambodian surrogate mothers at Prey Sar Prison, not too far from the Killing Fields, and on Friday send them to Hospital 168 in Phnom Penh for medical checkups, according to prison official on Friday.

Phnom Penh Municipal Court charged them of "cross border human trafficking and contraception with the surrogate" under Law on Crackdown on Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection and Article 332 of the Penal Code.
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On 29 June 2018, Investigating Judge Kor Vandy also ordered to detain four Cambodian suspects and one Chinese Liu Qiang, 49 with the above charge.
http://en.freshnewsasia.com/index.php/e ... 07-25.html
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Cambodia's surrogacy law set to lift burden from ‘victims’
27 September 2018
Hundreds of rights organisations from 18 countries campaigned for “a global ban on women’s womb rental” on Monday during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Exhorting heads of governments to implement a ban on surrogacy and to stop funding UN agencies that advocate its legalisation, they issued a statement which read: “Surrogacy is a serious violation of the rights and dignity of women and children. It is a form of women’s reproductive exploitation and it treats newborns as commodities.”

In the Kingdom, the Ministry of Women Affairs spokesperson Pon Putborei was unable to provide a comment on the statement.

However, he said: “We want to adopt a law that serves the interest of women and children.”

He noted that the Cambodian surrogacy law could reflect on the trending policy in the international stage.

“We don’t encourage Cambodians to become a surrogate for money,” added Putborei.

In March, the Justice Ministry finished the first draft of the Kingdom’s long-awaited surrogacy law.

It is expected to ban the commercial industry but permits altruistic surrogacy – a controversial subject given the latter’s potential for abuse.

In June, Phnom Penh authorities discovered 33 women who were offered up to $10,000 to have children for Chinese clients.

Five were arrested during the raid, including the alleged mastermind of the ring – a Chinese national.

“We are now checking the [first draft of the new law] whether it has covered everything to act as legal frameworks for the recent case."

“We don’t want to put the burden on those women, who were indeed victims in the case, by pressing further charges as possibly stipulated in the law,” said Putborei.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/ ... s/30355325
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Arrested in a raid three months ago, where are those surrogate mothers now ?

'I will not give them the baby': the plight of Cambodia's detained surrogates
Women lured by the chance to escape poverty explain how they have gone from being treated as victims to criminals
Tue 2 Oct 2018 10.00 BST
Sopheap* coos as she cradles her newest grandson, just five days old. She puts her nose to his head and drinks in his scent. She looks every bit the picture of the proud grandmother, as her young son and his exhausted wife look on.

But this is not a typical post-birth glow; their nativity scene is watched over by police guards.

The new mother, Malis*, and her son are prisoners in a hospital on the outskirts of Phnom Penh with 31 other women, all surrogates hired by a company to deliver babies to Chinese clients.

“I will not give them the baby. I will raise him myself,” Malis says. “When I saw him, I loved him already.”

Police rounded up the 33 women in late June during a raid on an illegal surrogacy ring. A Chinese national and four Cambodian women were arrested and charged under Cambodia’s anti-trafficking law.

Cambodia’s health ministry banned commercial surrogacy in late 2016, but a law is still being drafted. The recent arrests show that the industry continues to thrive in the shadows.

China’s rising infertility rate and the scrapping of its one-child policy have also led to an increase in Chinese parents seeking out surrogacy options abroad, although the subject remains taboo.

Initially, 32 of the women were placed in the care of the Christian anti-trafficking NGO Agape International Missions. Weeks later, the surrogates were arrested and charged with human trafficking.

Now, Malis faces the prospect of raising a child she was paid to deliver – an agreement she entered into because she is impoverished and in debt. Giving up the child could mean up to 20 years in prison, she fears.

The question now is whether the boy belongs to her or the wealthy Chinese parent who is genetically linked to him. “It’s very hard for me. It’s painful for me to think about,” Malis says, wiping at tears. “I feel sorry for my child, that he must stay in this room with me.”
https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... surrogates
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Cambodia surrogate mothers freed after vowing to keep babies
By SOPHENG CHEANG | Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – Thirty-two Cambodian women who were charged with human trafficking for serving as surrogate mothers have been provisionally released from detention after agreeing to keep the babies rather than giving them up as originally planned, officials said Wednesday.

Bun Samkhan, a spokeswoman for the National Committee for Counter-Trafficking, said the women, who were charged in July with violating surrogacy and human trafficking laws, were released on bail in three groups, the last 17 on Wednesday.

A senior police officer who works at the same agency, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk publicly, said the women were released on humanitarian grounds.

He said they had committed crimes but their babies are innocent, and for that reason the committee requested that the court free them. They had been held at a police hospital.

Acting as an intermediary between an adoptive parent and a pregnant woman carries a penalty of one to six months in prison. The human trafficking offense is punishable by seven to 15 years' imprisonment.

A Chinese man and four Cambodian women accused of managing the business were charged with the same offenses.

Bun Samkhan said her committee requested the release of the surrogate mothers so they could take care of their babies, with the condition that they keep the children.

"We have told them clearly that these babies belong to you, so you have to take care of them until they grow up, and not sell them," Bun Samkhan said. "And they agreed."
https://www.foxnews.com/world/cambodia- ... eep-babies
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Cambodia releases surrogate mothers who agree to keep children
06 December 2018 Asia
Thirty-two surrogate mothers charged with human trafficking in Cambodia for carrying babies for Chinese clients have been released after agreeing to keep the children, officials say.
The women were arrested in June in a raid as part of a crackdown on the country's commercial surrogacy trade.

A further five people, including a Chinese national, have been arrested and charged with human trafficking in connection with the case.

The release of the Cambodian surrogate mothers this week was agreed on "humanitarian grounds", a police official working with the National Committee for Counter Trafficking (NCCT) said.

The official, who asked not to be named, said that while the women had committed a crime, their babies were innocent, and for that reason the NCCT had requested their freedom on condition.

"They have agreed not to sell the babies and will raise them," he confirmed, stating that if the women break the agreement they could face human trafficking charges, which could result in up to 15 years in prison, AFP news agency reports.

In contrast, acting as an intermediary between an adoptive parent and a pregnant woman is punishable by up to six months in prison.
https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-46466888
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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Poverty and demand from China fuel illegal Cambodia surrogacy
Commercial surrogacy was banned in 2016, but trade has continued as government discusses formal legislation.
by Danielle Keeton-Olsen & Sineat Yon
13 Dec 2018
Kampong Speu, Cambodia - Shortly before 24-year-old Lee left for China, her parents borrowed $300 from a lender in their village to buy a suitcase for their pregnant daughter and clothes for the baby she was expecting.

Her mother, Poch Leng, was anxious because she would not be by Lee's side when she gave birth to the child she was carrying for a couple from mainland China.

But days before Lee's flight in June, she was arrested in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. She was one of 32 pregnant women held for surrogacy, along with a Chinese broker suspected of coordinating the trade...
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/12/ ... 42119.html
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Re: Police Raid House of Surrogate Mothers for Chinese Gang; 40 Arrested in Cambodia

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'Under the table': Cambodia's surrogate mothers risk jail for Chinese couples
21 December 2018
Industry watchers eagerly wait for legislation in Cambodia that could eventually regulate surrogacy and protect the women and children from becoming victims of trafficking.

Meanwhile, a network of Cambodian and international intermediaries persists in the shadows, with raids and arrests revealing the scale of the demand.

Experts say couples are willing to pay between US$40,000 and US$100,000 to have a child, while the surrogate mother typically gets US$10,000 to US$15,000.

Mariam Kukunashvili had a surrogacy agency in Cambodia before the ban, and said there are more than 100 Chinese or other Asian agencies still operating.

She said more regulation, not outright bans, is needed.

"Banning allows (the) industry to run under the table," Kukunashvili, director of Georgia-based New Life Global Network, told AFP.

She added that the Cambodian and Thai governments were putting the young surrogates' fate in the hands of "complete strangers".

Critics also say that authorities unfairly place blame on the women instead of recruiters when they are caught.

This year, more than 40 surrogate mothers in two different cases were arrested in Phnom Penh and charged with human trafficking.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/as ... s-11052758
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