Australian Father Charged with Sexually Abusing 5 Year Old Surrogate Twins

Sydney: A man has been charged in Australia with sexually abusing twins he fathered with a Thai surrogate, reports and children’s organisations said Tuesday.

Case is the second in as many months to ignite debate about commercial surrogacy, after another Australian couple left a surrogate baby which was born with Down’s syndrome in Thailand.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said that in the latest case the Thai mother, Siriwan Nitichad, had agreed to carry a child for a man and his wife who had not been able to conceive.
“She said her husband wanted to have a baby so much, please help them, please help them,” the woman, who is also known as Aon, told the broadcaster.

Ilya Smirnoff, executive director
of Childline Thailand

Aon, who lives in Phetchabun province north of Bangkok, said she agreed to use her own eggs, was paid about Aus$5,500 (Dh18,785 or US$5,122) and gave birth to twins some years ago.

Ilya Smirnoff, executive director of Childline Thailand, an organisation which has been involved in the case, did not name the mother but said he thought the children were now aged about seven and that the allegations dated back some two years.

“Initially she (the mother) felt pleased to be a surrogate and do a good thing by helping the couple...but when she found out about this (abuse charge) she was extremely devastated,” he told AFP.

“She is the biological mother and it is even more devastating to discover these things.”

 A Sydney-based NGO called International Social Service Australia confirmed that an Australian state government had contacted it about two years ago, seeking to trace a surrogate mother in Thailand, and it had contacted Childline.

It said it helped to obtain an “assessment on her (the mother’s) suitability to provide long-term care for the children”, but that ultimately the children had not been taken back to Thailand.

It is understood that after the twins were born, the couple took them back to Australia but that the marriage later broke up. Reports said court documents reveal that the father, who cannot be named, was last year charged with indecently dealing with the children.

The man, who reportedly denies the allegations which also include the alleged possession of child abuse material, is expected to fight the charges when they come before court later this year.

The children have remained with the man’s ex-wife. But Aon, who now has two children with her husband, told the ABC she was open to the idea of taking the twins back.

The case follows that of baby Gammy who was born with Down’s syndrome to a Thai surrogate for an Australian couple in December.

In that case, which sparked global debate, the couple took the boy’s healthy twin sister back to Australia but left Gammy in Thailand.

Gammy and birth mom

It prompted calls by authorities in Bangkok for tighter controls and raised concerns about the practice of international surrogacy, particularly after it emerged that the father in that case (Gammy's) had previously been convicted of child sex charges.

“There are loopholes with commercial surrogacy... there’s a possibility of exploitation of the child,” Smirnoff said.

Commercial surrogacy is illegal in Australia, but growing numbers of people are travelling to countries such as India and Thailand to engage women to carry their babies.

Father of Surrogate Child with Down's Syndrome a Paedophile

PERTH, Australia: An Australian father accused of abandoning his Down’s syndrome baby has convictions for child sex offences, reports said on Tuesday, as the surrogate mother said she was willing to take back the boy’s twin sister if the allegations were true.

The revelations came as the man and his wife claimed the Thai woman who gave birth to Gammy had misled the world over what happened. 

The couple, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have come under heavy criticism for apparently rejecting the boy at birth and taking only his healthy twin sister back to their home in Bunbury, south of Perth, from Thailand.

Australian Associated Press said court documents show that a man, believed to be Gammy’s 56-year-old father, was convicted for sexually molesting three girls. 

State broadcaster ABC added that he was jailed for sexually molesting two girls under the age of 10 when he was in his 20s. He was also accused in 1997 of another six charges of indecently dealing with a child. 

Other reports said child protection services had been called in to investigate his “suitability”, although they were unable to confirm this and police had no comment.

The surrogate mother, Pattaramon Chanbua, has insisted she will raise seven-month-old Gammy after saying the biological parents at first requested an abortion and then walked away when they learned of his condition. 

Pattaramon Chanbua and Gammy

But the Australian couple said in a statement, issued through a friend to their local newspaper the Bunbury Mail, the allegations were false and they did not know he had Down’s syndrome, although they were aware he had a congenital heart problem. 

“Gammy was very sick when he was born and the biological parents were told he would not survive and he had a day, at best, to live and to say goodbye,” the friend, a woman, told the newspaper, without saying who told them this.

The birth of the twins was supposed to take place at a major international hospital in Thailand but Pattharamon went to another facility, which made the surrogacy agreement void, according to the newspaper.

This meant that the couple had no legal rights to the babies although the surrogate mother finally agreed to hand over the girl, the report said.

“The biological parents were heartbroken that they couldn’t take their boy with them and never wanted to give him up, but to stay would risk them losing their daughter also,” the friend said. She added that allegations that the couple “ignored” Gammy when they visited the hospital were untrue and they had bought gifts for both infants. 

The friend said the couple spent two months in Thailand but due to military unrest at the time felt they had no option but to leave without Gammy. “This has been absolutely devastating for them, they are on the edge,” she said.

The case has sparked fevered debate on the moral and legal grounding of international surrogacy.

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the Gammy case was “a tragic human situation”.

“I don’t think there would be anyone in the country who wouldn’t be really pretty cut up about what’s happening here,” he added.

While the full picture of exactly what happened in Thailand remains unclear, Pattaramon insisted she had been transparent.