PHNOM PENH, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs is actively working to identify cases of commercial surrogacy in an effort to prevent foreign intended parents from leaving the Kingdom with children delivered by a surrogate mother, local media reported Thursday.
"We consider (surrogacy) as a new kind of human trafficking and our ministry is in position to prevent such crime,"the Phnom Penh Post quoted Samnang Tho, director of the ministry's Legal and Consular Department, as saying in an email.
In order for intended parents to leave Cambodia with a child born to a surrogate, the parents must obtain a birth certificate from a local official and have it translated and legalized by the ministry, Tho explained. But the ministry is now refusing to legalize birth certificates when it's suspected that the child was born through surrogacy.
"If the child was born from a Cambodian and a foreigner, we will check their married certificate and the passport and visa of the foreigner," he was quoted as saying by the media.
The ministry has refused to legalize about 10 birth certificates thus far, he added.
Commercial surrogacy came to Cambodia about a year ago after it was banned in countries like Thailand, India and Nepal. Last month, the Cambodian government announced a ban on commercial surrogacy in the country, describing it as a form of human trading.
Last week, anti-trafficking police arrested an Australian nurse and two Cambodians in the Kingdom's first-ever arrests for surrogacy. The clampdown has left intended parents in limbo.
