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Aidan Jones

As the car bounces along a rural Thai road, a baby just a few months old watches the emerald green countryside rush by from Nicha’s* lap, oblivious to the countdown that has already begun.
Soon the child will be handed over to her father to be raised in China by grandparents whose own hopes of a larger family were curtailed by decades of state population control.
Nicha may never see the baby she gave birth to again, but she knows that is the painful price of commercial surrogacy.
This is her third time around the carousel of pregnancy, love, nurture and eventual separation that always ends with the same abrupt emotional wrench.

“It’s a deep bond, just like carrying and raising your own child,” Nicha told This Week in Asia, sharing videos taken on her phone of the smiling baby.
“My whole family has fallen in love including my own parents and children. It will be so hard to give up this baby, but I have to.”
Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Thailand, yet a shadow economy thrives in its place, one where women like Nicha are paid US$10,000 to US$15,000 to help strangers become parents.
Neighbouring Laos and Cambodia enforce similar bans. China, meanwhile, punishes medical professionals who facilitate the trade at home, though surrogacy itself is not explicitly outlawed there – a legal grey zone that lets surrogate-born children claim Chinese citizenship.

Legal constraints mean embryo transfer and fertilisation can span several territories, leaving surrogates and prospective parents to travel the world in search of safe legal ground.
If they get caught, the outcomes can be severe.
Earlier this month, a court in Bangkok handed down sentences of up to 15 years to four Thai obstetricians and four brokers, convicted over their roles in a transnational surrogacy ring.
Prosecutors traced the operation to Zhao Ran, a Chinese national in detention since 2020 for recruiting surrogate women and paying them for their eggs.

Days after the verdict, Thai police detained two more Chinese nationals at a hotel in the seaside town of Pattaya – a man and woman in their thirties and forties – who were suspected of running an illegal surrogacy business , according to Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau.
None of which has done much to deter demand. Money, it turns out, still makes babies.
“The pathway to surrogacy has always existed,” said Jun*, a gay Chinese man in his thirties and the father of Nicha’s baby. “The only difference between people who can do it and those who can’t is financial means.”
For Jun, surrogacy offered a way around the stigma that still surrounds sexuality and childlessness in a culture where family remains paramount.
His egg donor was a Russian woman he met once, over a hurried meal, before their paths diverged for good. “After that we went our separate ways and never spoke again,” he said.
Less than a year later, Jun had a child.

Wombs for hire
Estimates from the United Nations put the global surrogacy market at nearly US$15 billion in 2023 – a figure that was expected to multiply six- or seven-fold within the following decade, as populations decline and people put off having children until later in life.
But surrogate mothers “receive only a small fraction” of the money the industry generates, according to a report by the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls published last year, with the bulk going to intermediaries such as clinics, brokers, recruiters and agents.
Legal precarity leaves surrogate mothers at risk of being punished, or of going unpaid under contracts that are unenforceable precisely because the trade is illegal. By its very nature, the UN special rapporteur notes, commercial surrogacy is defined by “harmful power imbalances”. Paying for a baby, in other words, is an ethical minefield.
Thailand banned commercial surrogacy for foreign parents in 2015, after a Thai surrogate had twins for an Australian couple who then refused to accept one of the babies, named Gammy, who was born with Down’s syndrome. Cambodia and Laos followed suit as allegations of exploitation of poor women emerged across the Mekong region.
After Thailand’s laws tightened, Russia and Ukraine became global surrogacy hubs, until war meant that Georgia and, increasingly, Armenia, have taken over as bases for clients from the US, China, Israel and India.

Given the industry’s shadowy nature, there are no comprehensive statistics on how many surrogate babies are born each year. But experts say China drives a large share of global demand.
Without an outright ban, “the domestic industry has been pushed underground or overseas”, said Dr Yingyi Luo, a research fellow at the University of Melbourne, adding that Chinese clients often preferred foreign surrogates seen as more likely to hand over the baby “cleanly”, without complication.
Luo, whose research spans the legal, ethical and cultural dimensions of surrogacy supply chains, says Chinese demand is diverse, from LGBTQ couples to people who married late or lost children and those with fertility challenges.
But she cautioned that surrogate mothers had few protections under the law and were for all intents and purposes “invisible” to authorities, “with little need to consider their consent, financial situation or psychological support”.

Still, the supply of surrogates from Southeast Asia shows no sign of drying up.
Poor, mainly rural women are enticed in by lump-sum payments to pare down debts, fund their children’s education or buy homes for elderly parents.
Recruitment happens through closed Facebook groups, said Nicha, a mother of two from a Thai farming community where the average monthly wage is US$270 to US$300 at best.
Lao, Filipino and Vietnamese women also form part of the global surrogacy supply chain, many making similar zigzagging journeys to evade authorities.
Nicha recalls a Thai mother who had an embryo from China transferred in Boten, on the Laos-China border, returned to Thailand for the first trimester, then travelled back to the mainland with the pregnancy hidden, but timed so the birth would happen close to the family paying for it.
The Zhao Ran case pushed the industry further underground, according to Thai police.
“Illegal surrogacy operations became far more complex,” a senior detective who has worked on such cases told This Week in Asia, speaking anonymously as he was not authorised to talk to media.
“The entire process, from sourcing and storing sperm and eggs, to embryo implantation and finally childbirth, became much more sophisticated, making it harder for investigators to uncover wrongdoing.”
Calls for legal reform are mounting in Thailand, to protect women from exploitation while bringing the trade in babies into a regulated space for surrogates and parents alike.
Reproductive healthcare should be a right
Nattawut Buapratum, Thai opposition lawmaker
Fertility clinics across the Thai capital would welcome the surge in demand a legal change might bring. But decriminalisation may still be years away.
“Reproductive healthcare should be a right,” said Nattawut Buapratum, an opposition lawmaker and former member of Thailand’s Committee for the Protection of Children Born Through Assisted Reproductive Technology. Under current law “in practice, access is largely limited to people who can afford it”, he said.
But surrogacy is a complex issue and even under a ban, Thai women are exposed to exploitation in commercial arrangements, according to Nattawut.
“We therefore need to carefully balance several competing considerations when amending the law: advances in medical technology, women’s rights and the rights of the child.”
As she prepares for the heartbreak of handing over a baby yet again, Nicha says this will be her last time.
“But the ones who do it, do it again and again,” she said. “We have no choice. There is nothing better we can do for money.”
*Names changed to protect interviewees’ identity


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Thailand

Media attend a press briefing where Thai police showed pictures of surrogate babies in 2014, the year before Thailand banned commercial surrogacy. Photo: AP

Newborn babies in hospital. Surrogate mothers in Southeast Asia can be paid up to US$15,000 to help strangers become parents. Photo: Shutterstock

A woman kisses her baby in Banteay Meanchey province, Cambodia, last year. Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Cambodia, Thailand and Laos. Photo: Reuters

Vehicles drive past the main police station in Pattaya, Thailand. Two Chinese nationals suspected of running an illegal surrogacy business were detained in the seaside city earlier this month. Photo: dpa

A man uses his mobile phone as he walks past portraits of babies used as advertisement for a fertility clinic in Bangkok. Photo: EPA

A 26-year-old Ukrainian going through her second surrogacy for a Chinese couple holds her belly in 2020. Russia and Ukraine became global surrogacy hubs after Southeast Asia clamped down on the trade. Photo: AFP

Thai surrogate mother Pattaramon Chanbua holds her baby Gammy, born with Down’s syndrome, at a hospital in Chonburi province in 2014. Photo: AFP

Vietnam bets on baby bonuses to get rich before it grows old

A pregnant woman holding an umbrella walks past a billboard of a happy family in Hanoi last month. Photo: AFP

A woman rides an electric motorbike with a child past a mural depicting a teacher welcoming children to school in Hanoi last month. Photo: AFP

A pregnant woman holding an umbrella walks past a billboard in Hanoi showing a happy family last month. Photo: AFP

An elderly farmer walks past rice fields in Hanoi in 2023. Many elderly Vietnamese still depend on their children for support. Photo: AFP

A woman walks with two children by a lake in Hanoi. Vietnam scrapped its long-standing two-child policy last year. Photo: AFP

A woman cradles her pregnancy bump while standing inside the National Hospital of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Hanoi. Photo: AFP

A woman carries a child on a ride-hailing motorbike travelling along a street in Hanoi earlier this year. Photo: AFP

Is super-ageing Singapore headed for population decline?

Illustration: Huy Truong

A mother and her child stand next to the Rain Vortex display at Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport. Photo: AFP

A worker paints an apartment building in Singapore last month. Housing is among the costs the city state wants to make more manageable for prospective parents. Photo: AFP

Same-sex parents kiss their son during the Pink Dot SG pride event in Singapore on June 27. Photo: EPA

Migrant workers on a construction site in Singapore. The city’s growth model historically combined labour force expansion with productivity improvements. Photo: AFP

A carer walks with an elderly woman through a park in Singapore. Sectors such as healthcare and caregiving will still require the human touch, observers say. Photo: AFP

A child poses for photos at a Chinese New Year market in Singapore in 2024. Photo: Xinhua

A woman carrying her baby shops at a Hari Raya bazaar in Singapore. Photo: Reuters

Inside Asia’s multibillion-dollar baby-making industry, where little miracles don’t come cheap

The Asia-Pacific is fast running out of babies as birth rates plummet, causing demand for assisted-reproductive technology and fertility clinics to skyrocket. Photo: Shutterstock

IVF clinics have been sprouting up across the Asia-Pacific as couples look to have children later in life – reflecting wider social changes surrounding choice, economics and narrowing gender disparities. Photo: Shutterstock

Medical staff perform a fertility treatment at an IVF clinic in Bangkok. In vitro fertilisation is the most common type of assisted-reproductive technology used in fertility treatment. Photo: AFP

A baby lies inside a cot at a confinement centre in Singapore. Post-partum confinement – a prolonged period in which both mother and baby rest in seclusion – is common in Chinese and other Asian cultures. Photo: Bloomberg

A medical technician selects eggs for an IVF procedure. The treatment is complex, with only a limited chance of success. Photo: Reuters

Tube of eggs in cryogenic storage. Egg freezing limits the number of times a mother has to undergo egg-retrieval for subsequent ART treatments. Photo: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF

A technician works at a fertility clinic in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia is home to 10 of only 30 fertility centres certified by the Australia-based Reproductive Technology Accreditation Committee. Photo: AFP

A young mother feeds her baby in a park. Online support groups offer would-be parents guidance on fertility treatments and childcare. Photo: Shutterstock

Jacinda Ardern holds her baby daughter Neve in 2018. New Zealand’s former prime minister opened up about IVF and her struggles to conceive in her farewell speech to parliament last year. Photo: AFP

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Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It is also worth an estimated US$15 billion a year


Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It is also worth an estimated US$15 billion a year.


Wombs for hire: the painful price of Asia’s baby trade

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It is also worth an estimated US$15 billion a year

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. It is also worth an estimated US$15 billion a year