Freed from jail, Cambodian surrogate mothers raise Chinese children

REUTERS

Campaigners say Cambodia's surrogacy crackdown is unlikely to end the trade as many women will continue to risk arrest for the chance to earn life-changing sums of money

By Matt Blomberg and and Yon Sineat

OUDONG, Cambodia, Dec 10 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Sophea was eight months pregnant when Cambodian police told her she would have to keep the baby that was never meant to be hers - and forfeit the $10,000 she was promised for acting as a surrogate for a Chinese couple.

Cambodia banned commercial surrogacy in 2016, and police in June raided two apartments where Sophea and 31 other surrogate mothers were being cared for in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh.

They were charged the following month with violating human trafficking laws, but authorities released them on bail last week, under the condition they raise the children themselves.

Campaigners say Cambodia's surrogacy crackdown is unlikely to end the trade as poverty means many women will continue to risk arrest for the chance to earn life-changing sums of money.

For some of the newly-freed women, keeping their baby is a burden as they struggle to get by. For others, it is a relief.

Despite the financial loss, 24-year-old Sophea told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that she was happy the authorities intervened, and that her family had welcomed her baby boy.

"If not for the crackdown and my arrest, I would have been left in deep regret," said Sophea, who did not give her real name for fear of backlash from the authorities and members of her community.

"I would have given away my baby," she said just two days after being released from police custody, settling back into village life at the end of a sandy track that winds through rice fields in Oudong, a 90 minute drive north of Phnom Penh.

http://news.trust.org//item/20181210101810-y6rbm/

 

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