Aggregated News
Bangkok: A "human trafficking syndicate" has been hiring Filipino women to travel to Cambodia to carry surrogacy babies for foreigners, including Australians, Philippine authorities say.
Four women were detained at Manila's international airport on New Year's Day while about to depart for Phnom Penh, indicating that surrogacy clinics are still operating in the city despite a crackdown on commercial surrogacy there.
Philippine authorities have also been put on alert for another group of surrogates who have been hired to travel to Phnom Penh on an undisclosed date, officials said.
During questioning the detained women said they were promised about US$10,000 ($13,800) to be impregnated with the sperm of intending fathers from Australia, Germany, China and Nigeria, officials said.
Philippine Immigration Commissioner Jaime Morente said the detentions revealed "a new modus operandi of a human trafficking syndicate that preys on our Filipino women who are enticed to bear children of strangers for a fee because of their poverty".
"We cannot allow this to happen," he said in a statement.
It is unclear whether the alleged traffickers were planning for the mothers...
