Surrogacy lures Cambodia’s poorest despite ban

TAKEO, Cambodia: Peeling a mango inside her rickety wooden shack, Chhum Long explains how her daughter’s decision to nurture a Western couple’s baby in her womb helped her family buy two desperately needed items: a metal roof and a motorbike.

Last year a broker appeared outside the 60-year-old’s house in Cambodia’s southern Takeo province and offered her daughter $10,000 to be a surrogate mother for a wealthy foreign couple.