Children were taken into Thai state care in 2014 but will now move to Japan with fatherA wealthy Japanese man at the centre of a “baby factory” scandal in Thailand has won sole parental rights to 13 children he fathered through Thai surrogate mothers. They were subsequently cared for by the Thai state, while another four infants were deemed also to have been fathered by the same man. The discovery threw a spotlight on Thailand’s then-unregulated “rent-a-womb” industry, prompting authorities to bar foreigners in 2015 from paying for Thai surrogates. Shigeta hired the Thai surrogates before the ban and paid them between $9,300 (£6,600) and $12,500 each, police said. Shigeta was deemed “sole parent” of the children after the Thai surrogates had signed away their rights, the court added.

Source: The Guardian February 20, 2018 06:40 UTC