Japanese businessman wins custody of 13 children born to Thai surrogates

[webfact]

Thai court grants custody to Japanese father of 13 surrogate children

 

FILE PHOTO: Surrogate babies that Thai police suspect were fathered by a Japanese businessman who has fled from Thailand are shown on a screen during a news conference at the headquarters of the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok August 12, 2014. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha/File Photo

 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - A Thai court on Tuesday said it ruled in favour of a wealthy Japanese man who had fathered 13 surrogate children in Thailand, naming him their legal parent and sole guardian.

 

The case harks back to late 2014, when police said they had found 13 babies fathered by a Japanese national with nine Thai surrogate mothers. The children were taken to foster homes and the father has petitioned for custody since early 2015.

 

The man had his sperm fertilise donor eggs, which were then planted in the wombs of the surrogate mothers in 2013, according to a press statement given by the court. No details were given on where the donor eggs were from.

 

The scandal at the time shone an international spotlight on Thailand's largely unregulated surrogacy business, prompting authorities to crack down on clinics with nationwide inspections and later to ban commercial surrogacy.

 

The Japanese man was given custody of the 13 children on Tuesday largely due to his financial and professional stability, and he was found to have no links to human trafficking, the court said.

 

Growing up with a biological parent will also be in the children's best interests, the court added.

 

"The petitioner is an heir and president of a well-known company listed in a stock exchange in Japan, owner and shareholder in many companies, and receives dividend of more than 100 million baht (2.28 million pounds) from a single company in a year, which shows the petitioner has professional stability and an ample income to raise all the children," the court said in a statement.

 

"Therefore, it is ruled that all the 13 children are legal children of the petitioner ... and the petitioner is their sole guardian."

 

The court gave no further details about the man, but said he plans to raise the 13 children in Japan where he lives, adding that he had previously raised his other surrogate children in Cambodia and Japan.

 

When the case was first lodged in 2014, police had said the man was 24 years old.

 

The man's lawyer, Kong Suriyamonthon, said his client plans to raise the 13 children, who are aged around 4, in Japan.

 

When asked why the man would want so many children at the same time, Kong said: "He has personal and business reasons. He was born in a big family, so he wants his children to grow up together."

 

Thailand was rocked by several surrogacy scandals in 2014, including allegations that an Australian couple had abandoned their Down Syndrome baby with his Thai birth mother taking only his healthy twin sister back to Australia with them.

 

Thailand passed a law banning commercial surrogacy in 2015 as a result, forcing clinics to move to Cambodia, where it was also later banned, and then Laos.

 

(Reporting by Aukkarapon Niyomyat; Additional reporting and writing by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2018-02-20

[webfact]

Japanese businessman wins custody of 13 children born to Thai surrogates

By Thai PBS

 

 

The Central Juvenile and Family Court in Bangkok today (Feb 20) granted a Japanese businessman Mitsutoki Shigeta, parental rights to 13 children born to Thai surrogate mothers, ending almost four years of the scandal that broke out in 2014.

 

The decision to declare the Japanese man father of the 13 children born via surrogacy was based on reasons that not only the Japanese man‘s caring for the children he fathered but also on his well established background.

 

The statement released today by the court said “For the happiness and opportunities which the 13 children will receive from their birth father, who does not have a history of bad behaviour, all children born through surrogacy will be legal children of the plaintiff.”

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/japanese-businessman-wins-custody-13-children-born-thai-surrogates/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2018-02-20

[CelticBhoy]

". . .  the happiness and opportunities which the 13 children will receive from their birth father, who does not have a history of bad behaviour . . . . "

 

He can't possibly have a history of bad behaviour as it would seem he spends all of his free time in bed with someone  . . . . .  

[Bangna Betty]

This is so disgraceful I can hardly believe it. What is the mental state of this young man organising all these babies with surrogates?  He has raised others in Cambodia and Japan. And his lawyer said he has ‘personal and business reasons’ for having all these children.  This behaviour is so questionable.  Unbelievable decision by the Court. 

[Misterwhisper]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

...which shows the petitioner has professional stability and an ample income to raise all the children," the court said in a statement.

Whether he also "has mental stability and ample healthy reasoning" for embarking on such a massive artificial procreation quest is another question, of course. And whether he is actually a capable caring parent is likewise not something the court has taken into consideration in its ruling.

 

In my opinion, this guy seems a nutter. But I might be wrong.

[webfact]

Father awarded sole custody of 13 babies due to his good character and excellent finances

By THE NATION 
AFP

 

 

A SUPER-RICH Japanese man will soon be reunited with 13 children he has fathered through surrogacy but was forced to leave behind in the wake of a “baby factory scandal”.
 

The Central Juvenile and Family Court yesterday granted Mitsutoki Shigeta the sole custody of his children. 

 

“The next step for us is to contact the Social Development and Human Security Ministry to take over the care of the children,” Shigeta’s lawyer Kong Suriyamontol said, after hearing the verdict. 

 

Shigeta left Thailand in 2014 after officials raided his upmarket apartment in the heart of Bangkok on suspicion that he might have engaged in human trafficking.

 

 

Neighbours alerted authorities as they found it strange to see so many pregnant women and babies in the same condo unit. 

All 13 babies linked to Shigeta in Thailand have since been put under the care of the ministry’s shelters for children, while Shigeta himself has assigned representatives to regularly visit his children. 

 

All 13 babies – eight boys and five girls -– have already grown into toddlers. Most of the surrogate mothers are Thais. 

 

The Central Juvenile and Family Court awarded Shigeta sole custody of the children after taking into account the fact that he was their biological father and in a sufficiently good financial position to take care of them all. 

 

Shigeta had asked the court to grant him sole custody and produced evidence to support his financial credentials. 

 

The Japanese man is the son of the founder and top executive of a highly-successful company in Japan and himself has also held shares in several firms. Dividends from one firm alone amount to more than Bt100 million each year. 

 

The director-general of Thailand’s Children and Youth Department has no objection against Shigeta’s bid to take the custody of his children. 

 

According to the court, Shigeta has given assurances that he will prepare adequate certified nurses and nannies for all the children. 

 

"For the happiness and opportunities which the 13 children will receive from their biological father, who does not have a history of bad behaviour, the court rules that all 13 born from surrogacy be legal children of the plaintiff," the court said.

 

Shigeta hired the Thai surrogates before the kingdom banned commercial surrogacy in 2015, following a string of scandals and custody tussles.

 

On one occasion, a Thai surrogate mother accused an Australian couple of leaving behind one of their twin babies “Gammy” after discovering he had been born with Down syndrome.

 

On another , a Thai woman refused to let a foreigner take the custody of a baby girl, “Carmens”, whom she gave birth to via surrogacy. 

 

The biological father ended up having to stay in Thailand for more than one year to fight for custody. 

 

It was widely speculated that the woman might have turned against him after finding out he was gay. 

 

In 2016, the biological father finally won custody. 

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30339335

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-02-21

[Maestro]

Removed a troll post.

[djayz]

13 surrogate children in Thailand, more in Cambodia and Japan... something's fishy here. No normal human being would want so many kids. 

 

[Genmai]

17 hours ago, Bangna Betty said:

This is so disgraceful I can hardly believe it. What is the mental state of this young man organising all these babies with surrogates?  He has raised others in Cambodia and Japan. And his lawyer said he has ‘personal and business reasons’ for having all these children.  This behaviour is so questionable.  Unbelievable decision by the Court. 

 

Objection.

What is truly questionable and disgraceful nowadays is the state of marriage in most developed industrialized societies (Japan included) and how heavily skewed the situations are in the favour of women. This is something I believe most TV members would agree with (especially the men). Domestic parasitism is well and truly alive, and this guy did the right thing by not playing a rigged game. All it takes is one entitled spoiled Japanese woman gaming the system and he could easily lose large chunks of his wealth and standing, not to mention custody of his own kids. Having a Japanese wife for someone like him would be like constantly being held at gunpoint for fear of being taken to the cleaners at any moment. Even if she never took him to court the fear would still be there and would impact the relationship accordingly.

 

Instead of an entitled wife leeching off his success and providing him with 2 or 3 kids max he now has a small brood of offspring, who will all receive top quality upbringing and will likely send money back home to their surrogate Moms. No one is negatively impacted in this situation but I can understand how women from developed nations (Western women especially) would throw a tantrum upon hearing this story since to them surrogacy presents competition for men's resources for which they somehow feel entitled to. Stories like these are the first signs of how men are at last rejecting the strangleholds that women place on them in relationships to unfairly acquire resources that aren't theirs. First surrogacy, now silicone sex doll brothels, and the next step is artificial wombs. Then women will finally get the equality that they have been screaming for, when they realise that men will no longer need to pander to women's whims and fancies and women will have no choice but to actually work hard instead of spending their husband's money on frivolous crap. To drive the point home this guy should keep procreating and have as many surrogate kids as he can adequately afford to have. Maybe if enough men opt out of traditional marriages the government will be forced to amend the laws to be more in favour of men and we can start to reverse the trend of abysmally low marriage rates in developed countries.

 

Regarding the comments suggesting that the man is of ill mental health - he is also unfathomably wealthy and successful, so he must be doing something right.

 

 

[Moti24]

"The Japanese man was given custody of the 13 children on Tuesday largely due to his financial and professional stability......."

 

Say no more!  Money speaks in Thailand.  Must have been a fair size envelope.

[webfact]

'Baby factory' mystery: Thailand's surrogacy saga reaches uneasy end

By Jonathan Head

BBC South East Asia Correspondent

 

 

Surrogate babies fathered by Japanese businessman Mitsutoki Shigeta, pictured in 2014 // Image copyrightREUTERS

 

The imposing new courthouse for juvenile and family affairs in northern Bangkok was the setting last week for the final ruling in one of the strangest custody cases to emerge from the moral maze of Asia's thriving surrogacy business.

 

At stake was the future for 13 young children, taken into state care as infants in August 2014, after they were discovered being looked after by nannies in a Bangkok apartment.

 

At the time the authorities were investigating fertility clinics in Bangkok believed to be offering commercial surrogacy services - paying Thai women to give birth to babies for mainly foreign clients.

 

This was in response to a Thai surrogate mother complaining that an Australian couple had refused to take one of the twins she had carried for them because he was born with Down's syndrome, a boy she called Gammy.

 

Full story: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43169974

 

-- © Copyright BBC 2018-02-26

[Bluespunk]

The guy is obviously a patriot, who is doing all he can to reverse Japan's demographic problems due to it's aging population and low birth rate.

 

He'll probably get a medal...

[DrTuner]

He just wanted to beat brangelina. Leaving quite a legacy, if I was him I'd build a proper Japanese warlord mansion to train them into Samurai.

[thaibeachlovers]

On ‎2‎/‎20‎/‎2018 at 3:03 PM, CelticBhoy said:

". . .  the happiness and opportunities which the 13 children will receive from their birth father, who does not have a history of bad behaviour . . . . "

 

He can't possibly have a history of bad behaviour as it would seem he spends all of his free time in bed with someone  . . . . .  

I realise you are being humerous, but one ejaculation is enough to fertilize all the donor eggs. So actually only 5 minutes with a jar and an "adult" magazine.

 

I wonder if he has dreams of starting a baseball team with his own children? 

[CelticBhoy]

56 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

I realise you are being humerous, but one ejaculation is enough to fertilize all the donor eggs. So actually only 5 minutes with a jar and an "adult" magazine.

 

I wonder if he has dreams of starting a baseball team with his own children? 

I think he's hoping for 18 daughters.

It's not a baseball team he's after.

I reckon it's his own golf course.