Philippine Daily Inquirer | April 12, 2026
The Bureau of Immigration in the Philippines reports that immigration officers stopped a woman in the Manila airport who was traveling to Beijing, and then Tbilisi, Georgia, to be a surrogate. She had been contacted by a recruiter via Facebook and was offered money in exchange for surrogacy services –– a practice regarded as human trafficking by authorities in the Philippines.
February 3, 2025 | Progress Educational Trust
An episode of an Al Jazeera documentary series shows how surrogacy arrangements operate in the Philippines, where surrogacy is neither illegal nor regulated. It also shows what motivates some women to be surrogates and how they are vulnerable to exploitation.
PET | January 13, 2025
Thirteen women from the Philippines acting as surrogates in Cambodia were convicted under Cambodian human trafficking laws, but they received royal pardons and were taken back to the Philippines. Most are still pregnant while some were repatriated with children they birthed as a result of the surrogacy arrangements.
BBC | December 3, 2024
Thirteen pregnant women from the Philippines who were part of an underground surrogacy operation have been convicted of human trafficking in Cambodia and were sentenced to 4 years in prison once they give birth.
Rappler | December 1, 2024
Although surrogacy itself is not regulated in the Philippines, many surrogacy clinics illegally falsify birth certificates of children born via surrogacy to avoid the time-consuming process of changing parentage from the birth mother to intended parents.
Rappler | November 30, 2024
The surrogacy industry in the Philippines is growing, but without regulations to govern the practice, surrogates and intended parents have little protection from exploitation.
October 24, 2024 | EuroNews
The arrest of 13 Filipina women in Cambodia sheds light on how women with limited economic opportunities are recruited to work as surrogates, which makes them vulnerable to arrest in countries that have banned surrogacy under human trafficking laws.
CNN | October 13, 2024
A police raid on a villa in Cambodia found 13 pregnant Philippine women who they suspected to be surrogates, which is illegal in Cambodia. Cambodian authorities say that the women were charged with crimes under the country’s human trafficking laws and may face prison time, but details of the case have not yet come to light.
