Pregnant Vietnamese “surrogates” allowed to go home, Police hunt for Taiwanese suspect in surrogacy gang

From the Bangkok Post:

Thailand repatriated five pregnant Vietnamese women and five babies yesterday after freeing them from a Taiwanese gang which forced them to be surrogate mothers to Taiwanese customers.

The five are among 15 Vietnamese women liberated during a police raid on Taiwanese-run Baby 101 Co in the Thararom housing estate on Ramkhamhaeng Road in February.

Four of them gave birth to five babies – two of them twins, five others are pregnant, and another six women were not. The latter group was sent back to Vietnam on May 13.

The babies to be delivered by the five surrogate women will be taken care of by the Vietnamese government, according to the Public Health Ministry. The women had earlier wanted to seek abortions but changed their minds…

Bangkok and Hanoi earlier signed a joint agreement to combat woman and child trafficking and to provide assistance to victims of the illicit trade.

The problem has prompted the two countries to crack down on human trafficking which is considered a transnational crime.

Police are currently searching for a Taiwanese suspect, identified as Lao Pan, who is accused of being a coordinator with potential customers in Taiwan where the government bans the use of surrogate mothers.

Investigators believe the man is still in Thailand.

Thai officials during the raid on Baby 101 Co arrested four Taiwanese nationals on human trafficking charges. They are currently being held at a prison in the Min Buri area.

Their company allegedly provided babies for customers by artificially inseminating surrogate mothers. The customers were charged 100,000 baht for each successful pregnancy.

Two private hospitals, one of which has no surrogacy certificate from the Royal College of Gynaecology of Thailand, were accused of working with the company.

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VVAI first posted news about this story here.

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