Minister of Interior Sar Kheng – also the chairman of The National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking (NCCHT) – agreed that after the work had been put aside for some time, research into establishing new surrogacy laws ought to be restarted.

Speaking while attending the April 7 annual meeting of the NCCHT, Kheng said the Ministry of Women’s Affairs had first looked at drafting such a law in 2016. This area of law would be new for Cambodia, so it requires careful analysis of existing legislation in neighbouring nations.

“Because this law is new to Cambodia, we must study it thoroughly. This will take time, as every day we are learning more and more. I requested this research to be put aside recently, but now is the right time to prioritise it. It is time to return this discussion to the table,” he said.

Kheng told the officials involved in this work to study the examples of other countries that have introduced such legislation, and to keep relevant international laws in mind while doing so.