Babies Stolen And Sold; How A TikTok Video Opened Up A Dark Chapter Of Georgia (Facebook image: Sartania Anno)

Georgia has been accused of child trafficking. In 2022, the Georgian government launched an investigation into the historic child trafficking. Reportedly, thousands of babies from Georgian hospital was stolen and sold, some as recently as 2005. BBC reported that the Georgia government has spoken to more than 40 people, upon launching the investigation in 2002, but the cases were “very old and historic data has been lost”.

Major developments into unravelling a dark chapter of Georgia’s history started when journalist, Tamuna Museridze discovered that she was adopted, upon finding her birth certificate while she was clearing out her late mother’s house. She found incorrect details in her birth certificate, leading to her suspicions. Museridze then set up a Facebook group in 2021, to search for her real family. The group has ended up exposing a baby trafficking scandal as thousands started to join the group for the same purpose. Though Museridze helped hundreds of families reunite, she could not find her own family. but she hasn’t backed down from her mission yet.

Amy Khavitia and Ano Sartania are the identical twins who were able to find their real parents after joining the Facebook. The twins, raised by different parents, when Amy was watching Georgia’s Got Talent at her grandmother’s house, when she noticed a girl dancing on TV, who looked identical to her. When Amy’s parents were asked why their daughter was dancing under another name, they brushed it off, as “everyone has a doppelganger”.

Seven years later, in 2021, when Amy posted a video of herself with blue hair, getting her eyebrow pierced on TikTok, some two hundred miles away (320km), Ano was sent the video by a friend who thought it was “cool”, that the girl in the video look like Ano. Ano tried to find the girl (Amy) through online, but couldn’t. She then shared the video on WhatsApp group to see if anyone could help. Someone who knew Amy connected them through Facebook.

Amy instantly recognised Ano to be the girls she saw all those years on the tv in Georgia’s Got Talent. The two discovered that they had a lot in common. Both were born in Kirtskhi maternity hospital, which no longer exist. According to their birth certificate, both were born a couple of weeks apart. They liked same music, loved dancing, and even had the same hairstyle. They found out that they both have the same bone disorder called dysplasia.

Amy and Ano arranged a meetup, at finally met each other at Rustaveli metro station a week later. Both of them decided to confront their families. From the families they the truth about being adopted for the first time. They had been adopted separately, a few weeks apart, in 2002. Both were upset and angry at their family for covering it up, as they felt their whole life has been a lie.

The twins dug deeper and found about the information on their birth certificate to be very wrong. When confronted, they found out that Amy’s mother, who was unable to have children said that a friend told her about an unwanted baby at a local hospital. She was told that she could take the baby home and raise her as her own if she pays the doctor. Ano’s mother also shared the same story.

Neither of the parents knew the girls were twins and said that despite paying huge amount to adopt their daughters, they didn’t realise that its was illegal. The said, as Georgia was going through a period of turmoil, and since hospital staff were involved, it was legitimate. Both families refused to revel how much money was exchanged. The new information left the twins wondering if tehir biological parents had sold them for profit.

Amy desperately wanted to find out about their birth mother, but Ano was not sure about as she asked what if the birth mother actually sold them. It was Amy, who found out about Museridze’s Facebook group, which was dedicated to reunite Georgian families with children suspected to have been illegally adopted at birth. When the twins shared their story, a young woman from Germany replied to them, who said that her mother had given birth to twin girls in Kirtskhi maternity hospital in 2002. She said that despite being told about her children had died, her mother had some doubts.

Upon checking the DNA test, the young woman from Germany was their sister and was living with her mother Aza in Germany. Amy and Ano travelled to Germany, from they met their birth mother. Aza explained she had been ill after giving birth and fell into coma, after waking up, hospital staff told her that her babies died shortly after they were born.

The Facebook created by Tamuna Museridze was filled with messages from mothers who claim that the hospital staff told them about their death of their babies , and later discovered that the deaths were not recorded and they could still be alive.

The journalist found out that the black market of adoption stretches from early 1970a and 2006. She believes that the market was run by criminals from all sectors. From taxi drivers to those in high position. Corrupt officials were believed to produce illegal documents needed for the illegal adoption. “The scale is unimaginable, up to 100,000 babies were stolen, it was systematic”, said the journalist. She said she got the figure by calculating the number of people who have contacted her, combined with time frame and nationwide spread of the case. She added that it is impossible to produce the exact figure as some of the documents were lost and some aren’t being released.

Tamuna Museridze said many parents told her that when they ask about the bodies of their dead baby, they were told they had already been buried in the hospital grounds. She then learned that at Georgian hospitals never had cemeteries. In some other cases, parents were shown dead babies who had been in the mortuary freezer.

Museridze said that it was really expensive to buy a child. A boy child costed 1,500 maneti ($2,100) and for girl child it costed 1000 maneti ($1000). She also found out that some children even ended up with foreign families like US, Canada, Cyprus, Russia and Ukraine.

Georgia changed their legislation about adopting a child and strengthened its anti-trafficking laws, and thus making the illegal adoption more difficult. Tamuna Museridze told BBC that she told the Georgian government about the information she discovered, after the country launched the investigation in 2022, but the government hasn’t said anything about when the report will be released.

Georgian government has made several attempts to bring out the truth about the case, and get to the bottom of it. This include the investigation in 20023 and in 2015, which led to number of arrests, but little information on the matter was released. When BBC approached the interior ministry of the country for the information, it was told that specific details will not be released due to data protection.