Georgia Child Trafficking Scandal Unsolved

In 2022, Georgian student Elene Deisadze was browsing TikTok when she came across the profile of a girl, Anna Panchulidze, who looked exactly like her. A few months later, after chatting and becoming friends, they both separately learned that they were adopted and decided to take a DNA test last year. It revealed that they were not only related, but also identical twins.

“I had a happy childhood, but now my whole past seems like a disappointment,” said Anna, an English major at the university.

Far from being an innocent case of separation at birth, the sisters are among tens of thousands of Georgian children who have been illegally sold as part of a decades-long baby trafficking scandal. The scheme, uncovered by journalists and families searching for missing relatives, has seen babies stolen from their mothers – many of whom were told were dead – and sold to adoptive parents in Georgia and abroad.

The journalists discovered that the illegal adoptions took place for more than 50 years, orchestrated by a network of maternity homes, daycare centers and adoption agencies that colluded to take children from their parents, falsify birth certificates and place them with new families in exchange for money.

Elene and Anna, now 19, began unraveling their hidden past two years ago.

“We became friends without suspecting that we could be sisters, but we both felt that there was a special bond between us,” said Elene, a psychology student.

Last summer, both of their parents independently told the girls that they were adopted — revelations they had long planned to make. That's when the couple decided to take the genetic test that would reveal they were identical twins.

“I had a hard time processing the information, accepting the new reality: the people who raised me for 18 years are not my parents,” Anna said.

“But I don't feel any anger, only immense gratitude to the people who raised me and the joy of finding my flesh and blood again,” she added.

Elene and Anna’s test was organized with the help of Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze, who runs a Facebook group dedicated to reuniting stolen babies with their parents. The group has more than 200,000 members, including mothers who were told by hospital staff that their baby had died shortly after birth, only to discover years later that the baby may still be alive.

Museridze created the group in 2021 in an effort to find her own family after learning she was adopted. She quickly discovered the massive baby-selling operation.

“Mothers were told that their babies had died shortly after birth and were buried in a hospital cemetery,” Museridze said. “In fact, hospitals did not have cemeteries and babies were taken away in secret and sold to adoptive parents.”

New parents were often unaware that the adoptions were illegal and told fabricated stories about the circumstances.

“Some people, however, consciously choose to circumvent the law and buy a baby” to avoid decades-long waiting lists, Museridze said.

She said she had evidence that at least 120,000 babies “were stolen from their parents and sold” between 1950 and 2006, when anti-trafficking measures by former reformist Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili finally ended the program.

In Georgia, new parents were paying the equivalent of several months' wages to arrange adoption, while babies trafficked abroad were sold for up to $30,000, Museridze said.

Elene's adoptive mother, Lia Korkotadze, decided with her husband to adopt after learning that they would not be able to have children a year after their marriage.

“But adopting from an orphanage seemed virtually impossible because of incredibly long waiting lists,” the 61-year-old economist said.

In 2005, an acquaintance told him about a six-month-old baby available for adoption at a local hospital – for a fee.

Korkotadze said she “realized this was my chance” and accepted.

“They brought Elene straight to my house,” Korkotadze said, never suspecting that there was “something illegal.”

“It took months of excruciating bureaucratic delays to formalize the adoption in court,” she said.

The story of Anna and Elene mirrors that of another set of twin sisters – Anna Sartania and Tako Khvitia.

They were separated at birth and sold to different parents, only to reunite years later after finding each other on social media.

More than 800 families have been reunited through Museridze's Facebook group.

Successive Georgian governments have repeatedly attempted to investigate the project and have made a few arrests over the past two decades.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Tato Kuchava said an “investigation is underway” into Museridze's revelations, but declined to provide further details.

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze told the Georgian parliament last week that Tbilisi was one of the world leaders in the fight against human trafficking.

However, according to Museridze, the state's response has been insufficient.

“The government has done nothing concrete to help our efforts,” she added.