Georgia, Thailand probing trafficking ring harvesting human eggs
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TBILISI/BANGKOK – Thailand and Georgia said they are probing a human trafficking ring that a Thai non-governmental organisation says is engaged in harvesting human eggs of Thai women brought to the South Caucasus country.
Georgia’s Interior Ministry said on Feb 6 it had repatriated three Thai women who it said had been working as surrogate mothers in the country. It said four foreign nationals had been questioned as part of the inquiry.
The Royal Thai Police’s commander of the foreign affairs division Surapan Thaiprasert told Reuters on Feb 7 that the Thai authorities were investigating.
One of the alleged victims spoke at a press conference in Thailand this week, without disclosing her name, and wearing a face mask and hat.
She said she responded to a social media advertisement for surrogate mothers who would live with families and be paid 25,000 baht (S$1,000) a month. She said that after agreeing, she was taken to Georgia, via Dubai and Armenia, where two Chinese nationals escorted her to a house.
She said: “They took us to a house where there were 60 to 70 Thai women. The women there told us there were no (surrogacy) contracts or parents.”
The women, she said, “would be injected to get treatment, anaesthetised and their eggs would be extracted with a machine”.
She added: “After we got this information and it was not the same as the advertisement, we got scared, we tried to contact people back home.”
The women at the press conference said they had feigned illness to appear weak to avoid having their eggs harvested. They also said their passports had been taken and that they were told by their captors that they risked arrest in Thailand if they returned home.
The Pavena Hongsakul Foundation for Children and Women, a Thai-based NGO which helped return the three women, said it estimated that around 100 more trafficked women remained in Georgia. REUTERS
