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Agence France-Presse

A Cambodian court on Thursday sentenced an Australian nurse to 18 months in prison for sourcing clients for a surrogacy clinic in the impoverished kingdom, as authorities tackle ‘womb for rent’ businesses.
Tammy Davis-Charles, 49, has been in custody since her arrest in November last year, weeks after Cambodia abruptly banned commercial surrogacy.
Authorities moved to curb the trade in Cambodia after Thailand and India blocked foreigners paying poor local women to be surrogates, following a wave of scandals and allegations of exploitation.
Prospective parents, many from Australia, turned to Cambodian clinics.
Police said Davis-Charles moved from Thailand to take advantage of the continued demand for surrogates, charging Australian clients up to $50,000 for each request.

More than 20 Cambodian surrogates were brought into the trade and received around $10,000 each.
“Tammy Davis-Charles was an intermediary between intended parents and Cambodian surrogate mothers,” Judge Sor Lina said delivering the ruling.
The Melbourne native was also convicted of falsifying documents.
“The court sentences Tammy Davis-Charles to one-and-a-half-years in jail,” the judge added.
Two Cambodian colleagues were convicted of the same charges and also jailed for 18 months.
In her defence statement in July, Davis-Charles broke down in tears in front of the court appealing for mercy from the bench, saying she had already “lost everything” during her six months in custody.
Surrogacy agencies started springing up in the Southeast Asian nation in 2015.
How Asia’s surrogate mothers became a cross-border business
With cheap medical costs, a large pool of poor young women and no laws excluding gay couples or single parents, Cambodia quickly absorbed much of the demand.
But in late 2016 authorities shuttered the trade and refused to recognise birth certificates for babies, leaving many foreign couples in limbo.
In April this year the government said it would allow foreign couples to return home with babies if they could prove they were conceived before the ban on commercial surrogacy.
The trade has swiftly found a new base in neighbouring Laos which has yet to criminalise commercial surrogacy.


Cambodia jails Australian nurse for 18 months for providing surrogacy services

Australian nurse Tammy Davis-Charles has been jailed in Cambodia. File photo: EPA

Australian national Tammy Davis-Charles (2nd L), seen with other detainees, is escorted by Cambodian police upon arrival at the Phnom Penh municipal court on August 3, 2017. A Cambodian court on August 3, 2017 sentenced an Australian nurse to 18 months in prison for sourcing clients for a surrogacy clinc in the impoverished kingdom, as authorities crackdown on 'womb for rent' businesses. / AFP PHOTO / TANG CHHIN SOTHY

How Asia’s surrogate mothers became a cross-border business

Clampdowns on surrogacy in Cambodia, Thailand and India have led to the emergence of complex, cross-border operations that put women, children and would-be parents at greater risk than before

FILE- In this Oct. 11, 2013, file photo, Embryologist Rick Slifkin demonstrates fertilization techniques on a nonviable embryo at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, in New York. A new 12-year U.S. study published Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2015, in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows complications including deaths are uncommon from procedures that include IVF. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

The entrance of New Life IVF clinic shows its closed doors in Bangkok on August 15, 2014. A gay Australian couple have been stopped from leaving Thailand with a baby for having incomplete documents for the infant, immigration police said, in the latest twist in a widening surrogacy scandal in the kingdom. AFP PHOTO/ Nicolas ASFOURI / AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURI

Thai surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua (L) kiss her baby Gammy, born with Down Syndrome, at the Samitivej hospital, Sriracha district in Chonburi province on August 4, 2014. The surrogate mother of a baby reportedly abandoned by his Australian parents in Thailand because he has Down Syndrome was a "saint" and "absolute hero", Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison said. AFP PHOTO / Nicolas ASFOURI / AFP PHOTO / NICOLAS ASFOURI

(FILES) This file photograph taken on October 29, 2015, shows Indian surrogate mothers as they gather during a peaceful protest in the campus of Dr. Nayana Patel's Kaival Hospital in Anand, some 90 kms from Ahmedabad. India's government on August 24, 2016, has approved plans to ban the booming commercial surrogacy industry, a move that would block thousands of foreign couples who flock to centres to have a baby. Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said cabinet approved a bill to restrict surrogacy services to local married couples, following concerns about the exploitation of young, poor Indian women who bear babies for others. / AFP PHOTO / Sam PANTHAKY

In this image taken from video supplied Sunday, Aug. 10, 2014 by Channel 9's "60 Minutes", David Farnell, right, his wife Wendy, left, pose with baby Pipah in Australia. The Australian couple, David and his wife Wendy Farnell, has denied that they abandoned their son born with Down syndrome to a Thai surrogate. The couple said in the interview that the boy's surrogate mother, Pattaramon Chanbua, insisted she be allowed to keep the boy and that she threatened to also keep his twin sister Pipah. (AP Photo/Channel 9 60 Minutes) AUSTRALIA OUT, NO SALES, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

An advert for an IVF clinic in Bangkok. Photo: EPA

Va Tey, a surrogate mother in Cambodia who says she was not fully paid, with her daughter, who was born before Va worked as a surrogate.

In this photograph taken on September 1, 2016, an Indian infant sleeps inside the Neonatal ICU at the Akanksha Hospital and Research Institute situated near Anand town, some 80 kms from Ahmedabad. At a hostel for dozens of pregnant women, impoverished widow Sharmila Mackwan weighs up her decision to carry twins for another couple -- her only ticket out of poverty -- as the government moves to close India's multi-million dollar surrogacy industry. / AFP PHOTO / SAM PANTHAKY / TO GO WITH AFP STORY INDIA-SOCIAL-HEALTH-SURROGACY,FEATURE BY ABHAYA SRIVASTAVA

A Thai surrogate, Wassana, sits in a rented room in Bangkok. She was offered US$10,000 to help a foreign couple who wanted a child but could not conceive. Photo: AP

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Tammy Davis-Charles said that she has ‘lost everything’ since her arrest and wants to be reunited with her family in Australia, including her 5-year-old twin sons
