Georgian clinic failed to pay surrogate mothers and housed them in rundown hostel – Radio Liberty
Violation of surrogate mothers’ rights in Georgia
Radio Liberty has published an in-depth article about surrogate mothers living in Georgia who have been demanding for months that investigators look into violations of their rights.
The company that hired the women stopped paying their fees on time, cut off support for daily needs, and moved them into a rundown hostel.
It emerged that the company owes up to 75,000 lari to the maternity hospital where the surrogate mothers gave birth. In some cases, children born through surrogacy were left in the hospital for extended periods. It was also revealed that the company would change egg donors without consulting the biological parents, leading to cases where the parents abandoned the child, and the surrogate mothers were forced to have abortions — losing their promised fees in the process.
These are just some of the rights being violated. The company Kinderly, whose offices in Tbilisi are now all closed, continues to bring surrogate mothers into Georgia. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies have been ignoring the women’s complaints for months, despite repeated reports to the police in recent weeks.
Key points from the article
Radio Liberty reports that the company Kinderly, which hires surrogate mothers, stopped paying their rent and moved the women into an old hostel in one of Tbilisi’s remote districts.
Seventeen women currently live in the hostel, which is so remote that journalists struggled to locate it. Three of the women are pregnant. Around ten children also live there with their mothers, the eldest being five years old.
The women living in the hostel claim that Kinderly failed to pay them their full surrogacy fees on time. One of them, 25-year-old Ina from China, lives there with her son. In early January, she gave birth to a child for a Chinese couple, but received only $3,500 out of the promised $16,000 — and waited three months for the remainder.
Another surrogate mother from Tajikistan, currently 12 weeks pregnant, is living in the hostel with her four-year-old son. She also hasn’t received her payment.
Kinderly, a surrogacy company, was established in Georgia in 2022. A company with the same name is also operating in Ukraine.
The company has two owners: Ukrainian citizen Ruslan Timoshenko and Georgian citizen Armen Melikyan. Neither of them has been in contact with the surrogate mothers recently. The company’s offices in Tbilisi are closed. The owners declined to speak to the article’s author or answer any questions.
The investigation revealed that Kinderly has previously changed egg donors without informing the biological parents. In such cases, the parents would refuse to take the child, and the surrogate mother would be forced to have an abortion, meaning she did not receive her full fee.
For instance, a biological father from China, who had paid the company $60,000, only found out the donor had been switched when the child was already being taken out of Georgia:
“My child is now two months old. I don’t know what to do — should I demand moral compensation or go to the police?”
He told reporters that, as far as he knew, the surrogate mother who gave birth to his child had not been paid.
The company also owes tens of thousands of lari to the maternity hospital where surrogate births take place. The hospital said that 75 surrogate mothers are currently preparing to give birth.
“A few days ago, another baby was born here via surrogacy. But we haven’t been able to reach the company’s founders. We’re considering taking legal action,” the hospital’s general director told Radio Liberty.
It also emerged that children born through surrogacy are often left at the hospital for extended periods.
“At the clinic where I gave birth, I asked one of the nurses why the babies were crying so much. She told me that some of them were three to four months old and hadn’t been picked up by their parents. That’s when I realised what kind of situation and sin I had gotten myself into,” said a Georgian surrogate mother who gave birth in late December.
One of the reasons children remain in hospital so long is delays in processing their documents.
Radio Liberty notes that despite the public outcry and multiple appeals to the police by the women, the authorities had not launched an investigation. Meanwhile, Kinderly continued to bring surrogate mothers into Georgia.
On the evening of 3 April, after Radio Liberty published its investigation, the police had reportedly arrived at the hostel and informed the women that an investigation was being launched.
Violation of surrogate mothers’ rights in Georgia
