A documentary about twin sisters Amy and Ano, who were reunited after being separated at birth due to child trafficking in Georgia, was published on the BBC in early 2024. The film centers on journalist Tamuna Museridze, who became known for her research into thousands of similar stories. The movie brought the case to the attention of a global audience. Today, Tamuna receives letters with similar stories from all over the world. She intends to take the victims’ cases to Georgian courts, hoping to gain access to their birth documents and free them from the ghosts of the past.
TEXT : Gayane Mirzoyan
Photo : Tamuna Museridze’s personal archive
Tamuna Museridze’s life changed forever when, in 2016, she discovered a second birth certificate among her late mother’s belongings. The tattered document revealed a shocking truth - Museridze was not her parents’ biological child. She had been illegally adopted as a baby, caught up in a vast underground network of baby trafficking that had operated in Soviet Georgia for decades. “I always felt that I didn’t belong where I was, even though I grew up in a very good family,” Museridze recalls, “but I could never explain this feeling until I found my real birth certificate.”
After spending time finding the maternity hospital where she was born (which no longer exists) and then requesting information from the archives, she received information that her mother had never given birth in 1984.
“I still could not believe that I was an adopted child. I started calling my relatives and close friends of my parents, but they refused to talk about it and sometimes became very aggressive,” said Tamuna. By chance, she found out about her adoption from the daughter of her mother’s best friend after Tamuna’s relatives admitted that they had “bought” her at the maternity hospital but didn’t provide any details.
Yet, Museridze was certainly not alone in her experience. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other Georgian adults had lived their whole lives unaware that they were not the biological children of their parents.
Determined to help others impacted by this injustice, Museridze created a Facebook group called “Vedzeb” (Looking For) in 2017 to connect those searching for lost relatives. What started as a small online community has exploded into a movement, with over 245,000 members united in the quest to uncover their roots and reunite divided families.
Her subsequent investigation uncovered an incredibly tragic chapter in Georgia’s history. According to Museridze’s findings, between the 1950s and 2005, up to 100,000 babies were sold by organized criminals through a trafficking scheme that involved players at multiple levels of society, ranging from taxi drivers to government officials. Families were cruelly deceived, being told their children had died, while corrupt officials faked adoption documents needed for the illegal adoptions. 1000 and boys for 1500 soviet rubles, while abroad, they were sold for 20 000$ - 29 000$.
Tamuna explained, “At that time, it was a substantial amount, as they could have bought a house or a good car with that money.”
Stories of Heartbreak and Hope
The testimonies shared within Vedzeb are both heart-wrenching and inspirational. There are accounts of mothers who delivered babies only to have them taken away, never to be seen again. And tales of children who grew up loved by their adoptive families but still longing to know their biological origins. Reuniting those families is incredibly difficult because of the lack of official documentation or remaining hospital records. Museridze has become a master at piecing together fragmented ancestral clues from DNA tests, hazy witness accounts, and purported anecdotes about black market handoffs from decades past. The logistics and personal costs involved in Tamuna’s relentless quest for answers have been staggering. In addition to countless hours of research, outreach, and facilitating reunions, Museridze has invested a significant amount of her own money into DNA testing services in hopes of generating new leads.
She believes it’s crucial for DNA tests to be done by those who know for sure that their parents never adopted them and that they know their relatives. When someone has already taken this DNA test, and a second or third sibling appears, this person will definitely know their origin, making it easier for the child to find out their roots.
Thanks to Tamuna’s initiative, 30 tests have already been done, costing $100 each. However, at the start, at least 500 tests are needed to cover all of Georgia. Regarding her own story, Tamuna is not very optimistic, as she feels she has tried everything and there is no way out. “I hope one day one of my relatives will take a DNA test, and I will find out my origins,” she admits.
Undeterred by Apathy and Inaction
Despite the revelations about systemic child trafficking of historic proportions, Museridze has been dismayed by the lack of official response or accountability from authorities. “They promised me that there would be an initiative, but nothing has happened yet. Can you imagine that the state, which seems to be conducting this investigation, tells us that they interrogated 40 people, but they have no victims? No, they have victims, but they have no evidence. They are just dismissing their stories. Officially, no one was declared a victim.” Museridze provided evidence from many reunited families but says, “they just do not want to take action” in holding the remaining traffickers and cooperating officials accountable so many years later. Proposed legislation to prevent future custody trafficking has similarly stalled amid bureaucratic indifference. However, Museridze remains undeterred, driven by the importance of uncovering the truth and validating the victims, even if formal justice remains elusive.
Thanks to Tamuna, the issue was raised in many publications in Georgia and became the focus of the BBC. The documentary “Georgia’s Stolen Children” is the story of the reunion of identical twins, Amy and Ano, who were separated and sold to different families after being born in Kirtskhi maternity hospital in western Georgia. They discovered each other through a TV talent show and a TikTok video, and their journey led them to a Vedzeb Facebook group. The twins’ search for answers revealed that organized criminals had run a baby trafficking ring, with corrupt officials falsifying documents to facilitate illegal adoptions. Nino Shonia, a documentary producer from the filming crew’s Georgian team, said there was no problem reaching people, and everyone was willing to share the story. However, it was challenging to work with facts.
“We checked even the smallest information to make sure everything was correct. That’s why we checked every document. Tamuna, of course, helped a lot. I always told Tamuna that she was a co-producer; without her, we wouldn’t have been able to shoot anything”, – Nino admits.
A Light in the Darkness
Museridze’s courageous efforts have earned her considerable international acclaim, including being named one of the BBC’s 100 Women of 2023. After gaining global attention, Tamuna’s initiative became international.
“Journalists from all over the world began calling me and telling stories about kidnapped children in Guatemala, Serbia, Czechia, Korea, Romania, and many others,” she said. This is how the idea of an international non-governmental organization was born: to reveal the large-scale scheme of child trafficking, as in many countries, governments continue to ignore this issue. And there are cases where it not only happened in the past, but in some countries, it continues today. Tamuna is already working on a memorandum for a future global organization that could join interested activists and experts worldwide. “We have a very big initiative to make a film in other countries as well,” she shared her next step.
P.S. Armenian case
Meanwhile, in Armenia, on another Facebook page – “Armenian mothers” – hundreds of people are trying to find their relatives. The cases vary: some want to find their biological parents after losing their adoptive ones, while others, like in Georgia, are trying to find their children and siblings who disappeared from maternity hospitals.
Tatev Hovhannisyan, an Armenian journalist, worked on an investigation with Italian colleagues about an illegal adoption gang in Armenia that sold babies to Italian couples. The alleged ringleader of the gang, Anush Garsantsyan, is still working in adoption while on trial, and many of her co-defendants, including key government officials, continue to hold senior positions in maternal healthcare and the government. The investigation, published on openDemocracy and the Italian investigative website IrpiMedia, found that the group caused some children to be born with health conditions that would make their parents more likely to give them up for adoption and used false medical records and doctored administrative paperwork to fake such conditions in other cases. The Italian Commission for International Adoptions (CAI) suspended the opening of new adoption cases in Armenia as a precautionary measure, but three adoptions were completed in Italy last year. The authorities in both Armenia and Italy confirmed this to the reporters.
“Our findings have raised concerns among rights campaigners that Armenian women are still at risk of potential abuses, especially considering that international adoptions from Armenia to other countries have not been halted,” said Hovhannisyan.
The Prosecutor General’s Office announced in March 2023 that it believes at least 437 other Armenian children have been sold for at least €25,000 each to both foreigners and ethnic Armenians living in foreign countries, including Italy, the United States, France, Russia, and Switzerland. The two countries have yet to address a legal grey area highlighted by the investigation.
Join us on Telegram