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Rights advocates are urging the government to accelerate the adoption of legislation regulating surrogacy and strengthen law enforcement to prevent illegal surrogacy which exploits women and causes adverse impacts on women’s health.
The call follows a raid by authorities on an illegal surrogacy operation at two units in Borey Sen Sok Condominium, Building C in Tumnob 1 village, Phnom Penh Thmey commune, Sen Sok district in Phnom Penh on October 24, 2026, where one Chinese woman and four pregnant Vietnamese women were found. It is learnt that intermediaries arranged surrogacy agreements between prospective parents and surrogate mothers.
The area of the 20-story building is surrounded by Chinese restaurants, shops, and household goods stores. Nearby, several Cambodian vendors sell food from roadside carts. According to local residents, most occupants are Chinese, Japanese, and other foreign nationals, with only a small number of Cambodian residents.
Authorities said the Chinese woman is alleged to have managed and coordinated the surrogacy. Police also seized several items of evidence. Specialized officers are currently preparing the case for legal proceedings.
Eng Chandy, executive director of Gender and Development for Cambodia (GADC), said Cambodia lacked a specific law to regulate paid surrogacy, with only the Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation in place.
“In some cases, we still don’t clearly understand how surrogacy could be classified as a criminal offence in Cambodia. Normally, if the individuals involved in surrogacy are foreigners and it is found that they came to Cambodia for a surrogacy-related purpose rather than for legitimate work, authorities may consider it a form of human trafficking.”
Chandy said that surrogacy is not purely a domestic issue confined to a single country. It frequently involves cross-border arrangements and international coordination because surrogate mothers may carry children for intended parents of different nationalities and from different countries.
“The system of protection and prevention is still not effective in addressing surrogacy in our region. This is not only a challenge for Cambodia.”
The GADC executive director emphasised that such cases can affect women “physically, psychologically, socially, and economically”. She argued that conducting surrogacy in secrecy, without adequate oversight or legal framework, creates significant risks of exploitation, which can harm women’s health and the welfare of children born through surrogacy.
Meanwhile, Kin Phea, director of the Institute of International Relations at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, warned that if commercial surrogacy continues unchecked and authorities fail to identify those orchestrating the operations, it could become a serious social problem in the future, similar to online scam networks.
“Emerging negative issues can damage our country, image, and confidence in our legal system. It can also discourage foreign investors and tourists.”
Expressing concern, Phea said authorities must investigate the cases thoroughly by going to the root of the problem rather than deal with the “symptoms”.
He stressed that although such cases can be difficult to investigate, effective law enforcement is essential. Authorities should strengthen enforcement mechanisms and law enforcement officials’ capacity. If perpetrators are identified, legal action must be carried out effectively.
“Criminal activities can flourish when there are loopholes or weaknesses in law enforcement. Those shortcomings create opportunities for crimes to occur.”
Sok Sam Oeun, chief attorney at AMRIN Law and Consultants Group, said that whether surrogacy constitutes a criminal offence depends on the legal framework. If the law explicitly prohibits it, then it becomes a crime.
However, if there is no specific law on surrogacy, surrogate mothers cannot be punished solely for acting as surrogates.
Sam Oeun said surrogacy has positive and negative aspects. Pregnancy requires many months and involves significant physical hardship; therefore, serving as a surrogate mother is not an easy undertaking.
“It should not necessarily be considered a serious crime, but if a woman cannot become pregnant because of illness or a physical condition that prevents her from having children, surrogacy may be an option to help women who are unable to give birth.”
For this reason, Sam Oeun told reporters, surrogacy should not automatically be classified as human trafficking because trafficking generally involves deception, and surrogacy arrangements do not necessarily have those elements.
He explained that human trafficking involves transporting persons from one place to another for exploitation or sale. But, illegal cross-border movement is not automatically human trafficking if the individuals traveled voluntarily, although it may violate immigration or border-control laws where penalties exist.
Chou Bun Eng, Permanent Vice Chairperson of the National Committee to Counter Trafficking and Sam Vicheka, spokesman for the Phnom Penh Municipal Police, did not respond to CamboJA News.
In 2018, more than 30 pregnant Cambodian women were detained participating in a surrogacy program. The court placed them under investigation on charges of “selling and trafficking persons for cross-border transfer” and required them to sign agreements with authorities committing to raise the children themselves.
In 2017, Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced an Australian woman and two Cambodian nationals to 18 months’ imprisonment for hiring Cambodian women as surrogate mothers.
A year later on July 5, the same court charged 32 surrogate mothers with cross-border human trafficking under Article 16 of the Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation.
In November that year, authorities raided a house in Sen Sok District and arrested 13 surrogate mothers.
On December 2, 2024, the court sentenced 13 Filipino women who had served as surrogate mothers in Cambodia to four years in prison for attempted trafficking and sale of persons for cross-border transfer.
A Cambodian woman employed as a housekeeper was also sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for failing to report the felony. The court later reduced the Filipino women’s prison terms to two years.
The Cambodian woman, who had worked as both a housekeeper and cook caring for the Filipino women, had her sentence reduced to two months and one day.
