Phnom Penh: Cambodia has told dozens of Australians they must declare they are the biological parents of babies being carried by surrogate mothers or risk being treated as suspects in human trafficking.
The warning came after a Cambodian surrogate mother gave birth to a baby who no intending parents turned up to collect, following a police crackdown on about 50 surrogacy brokers and clinics in the country's capital.
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Cambodia's surrogacy scandal
Inside this poor village in Cambodia, Melbourne nurse Tammy Davis-Charles illegally recruited commercial surrogates before she was jailed.
Chou Bun Eng, Cambodia's Secretary of State at the Interior Ministry, told Fairfax Media that if Australian parents fail to come forward, Cambodia will not facilitate them bringing their babies home to Australia and "will look at the case as one of human trafficking or smuggling".
"I want to send a clear message; come forward now and you will not be treated as perpetrators … that is my promise," Ms Bun Eng, who is also permanent vice-chair of Cambodia's National Committee for Counter-trafficking, said.
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"We want to ensure that promises made to surrogate mothers are fulfilled … that the contract is completed," she said.
"We are worried about the safety of the babies and welfare of the mothers."
Not one of more than 70 Australian parents who have entered into surrogacy arrangements in Cambodia has so far declared themselves to Cambodian authorities.
The Australian embassy in Phnom Penh has granted Australian passports to five babies born through agreements brokered by Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles, mainly on the basis of DNA tests linking parents to the baby.
But none of the information relating to the applications has been passed on to Cambodian authorities, straining diplomatic ties between the two countries, Cambodian officials say.
"We are asking for collaboration from the Australian embassy or government," Ms Bun Eng said. "This is all new in my country. We need to know what is going on."
Cambodia has struggled for months to decide how to deal with surrogacy after the country became the latest Asian hub for the practice after surrogacy brokers and clinics were chased out of Thailand, India and Sri Lanka.
Ms Bun Eng also urged Ms Davis-Charles, who has been in jail awaiting trial on charges relating to surrogacy, to divulge to local authorities details of all agreements she has brokered through her company Fertility Solutions PGD.
"Tammy says things like 'Oh, I forgot … the documents are in Thailand'. But how could she forget? So who is responsible for these babies?" Ms Bun Eng queried.
"If Tammy has good collaboration with us, I think maybe she will not be punished very seriously," she said. "We are requesting her staff to carry on with her services for the surrogate mothers … to do her duty."
Ms Davis-Charles' company has in the past few days paid $US6200 ($8600) to Hour Vanny's sister-in-law Som Tha Satry, a 33-year-old divorced mother of a nine-year-old son. She gave birth to surrogate twins, a boy and girl, on October 26.
The biological father was an American man in his 30s. The money was sent from Thailand.
Davis-Charles has told police she has brokered 23 surrogacy agreements since she moved her business to the country from Bangkok when Thailand's military government shut down the surrogacy industry there in 2014 in the wake of the Baby Gammy scandal.
She has not spoken publicly since her arrest in late November, citing instructions from her lawyer.
Ms Bun Eng also appealed to scores of surrogate mothers carrying babies who have gone into hiding, fearing arrest under the crackdown, to come forward so they can he helped.
"We are treating the surrogate mothers as victims. My message is that they should not take notice of fake stories circulating on the internet," she said, adding that while they are in hiding they may not be receiving medical attention.
There have been reports on internet blogs and social media suggesting the surrogate mothers could face arrest.
Some surrogate mothers are believed to have crossed the border into Thailand, where the Australian embassy in Bangkok is reportedly still processing passports for babies born through surrogacy.
Ms Bun Eng said Cambodian authorities do not know how many babies are being carried through surrogate mothers in her country, but surrogacy groups estimate there are hundreds, many of them with same-sex biological parents.
Ms Bun Eng said Cambodia wants to quickly solve current cases before implementing new surrogacy laws.
She said she personally understands how impoverished Cambodians agree to be surrogates for money. But she said surrogacy has never before been widely practised in Cambodia's conservative Buddhist society.
"I personally think it's against humanity and not natural," she said.