A newborn baby in a hospital in India.

They went into every house in the village of Takeo, about an hour’s drive from the capital Phnom Penh, Cambodia, to persuade women to give birth to foreigners.

To circumvent the ban of the governments of India, Nepal and Thailand, countries previously considered centers of surrogacy services in Asia, many surrogacy lines have moved their operations to rural areas in Asia.

Brokerage companies take advantage of the poverty and gambling debt of many families in the village of Takeo to manipulate.

Mrs. Phorn looks after her three grandchildren while her daughter goes to Bangkok, Thailand to wait for her baby to be born this July.

`We were so poor that my daughter was a surrogate,` Mrs. Phorn expressed.

Since February 2015, a ban on commercial surrogacy has taken effect in Thailand, according to which foreigners who hire Thai women as surrogate mothers can face up to 10 years in prison.

In Vietnam, the law also prohibits commercial surrogacy.

`Many infertile couples from Australia, the US and China, especially gay couples, have decided to try their luck in Cambodia,` said director of the non-profit organization Families Through Surrogacy Sam Everingham.

Brokers in Thailand transfer commercial surrogacy activities to Cambodia.

Cross-border services

Va Tey, pictured with her daughter, said she wasn’t paid enough after being a surrogate for an American gay couple.

However, in October last year, the Cambodian Ministry of Health suddenly decided to tighten surrogacy activities, pushing couples and surrogate mothers into a dilemma and causing an outbreak of

Va Tey, who also lives in Takeo village and is a surrogate for an American gay couple, said she was given an advance of $4,000.

There are many cases where a couple of American or Australian nationality hires a broker based in Thailand, while the surrogate mother is Cambodian, and then the child is born in another country.

`Many women still have to return to their previous (poor) lives after giving birth,` said Mr. Savouen, head of Takeo village, `But it’s difficult to persuade them not to do it anymore.`