Aggregated News
Up to 10 surrogacy-born babies with Australian biological parents are stuck in legal limbo in Cambodia after a crackdown on commercial surrogacy there last year.
Surrogacy experts believe about 50 more babies carried by mostly Cambodian surrogate mothers for Australians are yet to be born.
Some of the Australian couples have been waiting for up to three months to take their babies home, creating financial and family hardships while staying with their babies in the capital, Phnom Penh.
"They are pretty desperate," Sam Everingham, the global director of Australian consultancy Families Through Surrogacy, said.
The Cambodian government is refusing to issue exit visas for all surrogacy cases where the newborn babies have a foreign passport, in a developing human crisis in the country.
Chou Bun Eng, Cambodia's Secretary of State at the Interior Ministry, warned last December that if intending Australian parents failed to present themselves to Cambodian authorities the government would not facilitate them bringing their babies to Australia.
"We want to ensure that promises made to surrogate mothers are fulfilled ... that the contract is completed," she said...