DAYS before her arrest and incarceration in Phnom Penh’s infamous Prey Sar prison, Australian mum and surrogacy agent Tammy Davis-Charles made a Facebook post which hinted that she knew they were coming for her.

Ms Davis-Charles, 49, a mother of six from Melbourne who Cambodian police allege falsified birth certificates to take surrogate Khmer babies to Australia, wrote the post on her Fertility Solutions PGD Facebook page.

“There are lots of rumours floating around at present about Cambodia closing down,” she posted on November 4.

“The Government are reviewing laws. Honestly it could go either way.

“Please be warned do not sign up with anyone trying to push you through!!!!.

“As you will most likely be caught up in the end when the baby is born which becomes a nightmare.”

What MS Davis-Charles didn’t predict was the fact that she would get caught up, and arrested on November 20 in Phnom Penh.



The mother of six, who herself has twin boys conceived using donor eggs and a Thai surrogate, is now awaiting trial on charges that could take years to go to court.

A trained nurse, MS Davis-Charles was running a fertility clinic in the Cambodian capital when the government declared a ban on commercial surrogacy.

Police claim that she was involved in a racket in which sums of up to $50,000 were paid by Australians for babies and that marriage documents between surrogate Khmer mothers and donor fathers were forged.

The Cambodian Government now deems commercial surrogacy as human trafficking, and has begun a crackdown on taking surrogate babies out over the border.

In the wake of Ms Davis-Charles’ arrest, Cambodian authorities declared an amnesty for babies already born.

Cambodia offered the amnesty to a small number of Australian families who have paid for surrogacy services through Ms Davis-Charles, but said the practice cannot continue.

Ms Davis-Charles’ family has started a campaign with a hashtag #freetammydavis, but for the moment she faces an uncertain future in Prey Sar, previously known as S24 prison.

Prey Sar has four wings known as “bloks”, with Blok A for inmates awaiting trial which can taken between six months and two years depending on the case’s complexity.

The prison provides two meals a day of rice and vegetables, leaving inmates to pay for everything including drinking water, shower water, soap, and decent food.

Overcrowding runs to more than 20 inmates sharing a 17 square metre cell.

The prison has housed Australian drug dealers and disgraced British entertainer and paedophile, Gary Glitter.

One of Ms Davis-Charles’ sons, Dylan Charles, posted on Facebook that she is being visited by her husband, lawyers and colleagues.

He said that the surrogacy agency’s accounts were frozen but that “We are all stepping up to the plate and pushing with forces that before this, were unknown”.