Although surrogacy has been banned in Cambodia since 2016, the lucrative business of “baby factories” persists in this poor Southeast Asian country. Evidence of this is the recent dismantling of a network that led to the arrest of 24 foreign women—20 Filipinos and 4 Vietnamese—recruited to serve as surrogate mothers for foreign clients.

This trafficking operation was uncovered during a police raid in late September at a villa in the Prek Anchanh commune, Kandal province, south of the capital Phnom Penh, where the women were housed. Eleven of them, who were not yet pregnant, were immediately deported to their home countries. The other 13—three of whom had already given birth—were sentenced in late November to four years in prison, two of which were suspended under Cambodian laws that penalize human trafficking.

Particularly attractive prices

Pardoned by a decree from King Norodom Sihamoni, the 13 Filipinos returned to their country December 29 without any clarity on the fate of the children already born or yet to be born. “If we conclude that they are unable to care for the children, then the babies could temporarily become wards of the state, and we must consider options such as adoption,” explained Nicholas Felix Ty, Philippine Undersecretary of Justice.

The traffickers, however, remain at large. According to Cambodian authorities, the agency responsible for the recruitment is based in Thailand and primarily caters to Chinese clients, driven by the relaxation of the one-child policy, as well as Australian and American clients. These childless couples are drawn by the highly competitive prices: in the United States, surrogacy costs can exceed $100,000, while hiring a surrogate in Cambodia is reportedly ten times cheaper.

Laos: The new surrogacy haven

This explains why, despite the 2016 ban, Cambodia remained a hub for this trade, as evidenced by several high-profile cases in recent years.

In 2017, an Australian nurse and her two Cambodian accomplices were sentenced to one and a half years in prison for running an illegal clinic. The following year, Cambodian police announced the dismantling of a trafficking ring in Phnom Penh involving 33 surrogate mothers. These women were eventually released on the condition that they agreed to keep their babies. In 2019, authorities again reported the release of 11 women under the same promise not to sell their children.

“The surrogacy market is expanding in Asia, as it is in all countries where many women live below the poverty line,” lamented a representative of CoRP, a feminist collective advocating for the global abolition of surrogacy, to La Croix. This is particularly true in Laos, Cambodia's even poorer neighbor, which is emerging as the new surrogacy haven. There, open clinics boldly advertise “substitute maternity packages at the lowest prices” online with slogans like, “Let us help you achieve your dream of having a child.”