13 children rescued from Cambodian 'adoption racket'

Thirteen children, including 10 babies as young as two weeks, have been rescued from an apparent illegal adoption racket in Cambodia.

The children were being kept at two nursing homes raided by police Monday night in Phnom Penh.

Three women and a man operating the nursing homes were arrested.

The operators did not have a permit to run the nursing homes and are suspected of being involved in a scheme to buy babies from poor Cambodians and sell them to prospective adoptive foreign parents.

The 10 infants rescued were aged between two weeks and three months.

The other three children were aged one, three and six years.

Naly Tilorge, a spokeswoman of a Cambodian human rights group, Licadho, said the raid was prompted by a Cambodian woman asking for help to reclaim her children she had sold earlier to the nursing homes.

The children were sold for the equivalent of £100, she said.

Tilorge said: "This case is sort of indicative that obviously there is a black market for buying and selling babies. We're concerned that babies, children, human beings, are being sold for profits."

Squeezed by chronic poverty, many Cambodian parents have resorted to eking out a living by selling their children for adoption.

No charges has been filed against the operators, though an investigation into their activities continues.

Poor Cambodians are known to have sold their babies for as little as £9 to "procurers" from orphanages.

However, responding to accusations of baby-selling and corruption, the Government suspended in June 2000 overseas adoptions and promised to review the system, which largely operates without rules or scrutiny.