Cambodia gets tough on commercial surrogacy

Cambodia has sent out a strong message about commercial surrogacy.

A court in Phnom Penh has jailed an Australian nurse and two local assistants on charges of running an illegal surrogacy clinic.

Tammy Davis-Charles has been given a sentence of one and a half years for breaching a 2016 ban on commercial clinics in the country.

Southeast Asia had been a popular destination for infertile couples but Cambodia followed the lead of Thailand in outlawing the practice.

Davis-Charles had denied the charges against her. She claimed she was only looking after surrogate mothers and did not know about the ban.

Many couples are now going to Laos for In-Vitro Fertilisation and surrogacy services.