Anna, a surrogate who worked with the surrogacy center Kinderly, first came to Georgia in March of last year, and on February 21 of this year, she gave birth to two children to their biological parents. She had a claim that the company violated its contractual obligations even while the fetus was in her womb, but the main challenges began when she gave birth and Kinderly did not pay her the salary she was owed.

Another surrogate woman, whom we will refer to by the pseudonym Nina, arrived in Georgia with her young child. She did not notice any signs of inappropriate treatment from Kinderly during the pregnancy, but after giving birth, she became convinced that she had a contract with a company that was less interested in the fate of surrogates, taking care of their health during pregnancy and postpartum, or providing honest compensation.

The women decided to protect their rights through legal means after they failed to receive the salary they were supposed to receive according to their contract, despite numerous attempts. Their interests are protected by the organization Sapari .

According to the data available in the public registry, Kinderly Georgia is owned by two individuals: Armenian citizen Armen Melikyan owns 67%, and Ukrainian citizen Ruslan Tymoshenko owns the remaining 33%.

Working for Kinderly: Anna and Nina’s experience 

Anna has had experience working as a surrogate before, but this was her first time working with Kinderly. This time, she gave birth to two children for their biological parents. After the fetal heartbeat was checked in July of last year, she returned to her homeland and flew back to give birth in December. She gave birth by cesarean section in February. She tells us that the center’s violations of the contract began from the day the eggs were “transferred,” when they did not pay her the fee stipulated in the contract — initially she was supposed to receive $400, and another $400 after the fetal heartbeat was checked. After that, she was also paid $400-400 for each month of pregnancy.

“It turns out that we gave birth to children and no one thought about us at all — we had no medical care, no psychological, no financial support, nothing.”

“[After the “transfer”] they gave me $200 three days later, and the remaining $200 was delayed. When the baby’s heartbeat was confirmed, they also credited me partially — $50, $100, etc. After that, they delayed it every month. In January, they gave me my salary three days early, on January 13. And in February, on the 16th, they didn’t give me the salary I was supposed to receive. On February 20, I went to the maternity hospital and went into labor on the 21st. I was supposed to give birth naturally, but it was going poorly, and after 8 hours, they had to perform an emergency cesarean section. On February 24, they discharged me from the clinic and moved me to a rented apartment,” Anna tells us, adding that before she was discharged from the clinic, she was made to sign a document in which she allegedly denied being a mother so that the biological parents could be recorded on the birth certificate. However, she is not entirely sure about the content of the document, as it was written in Georgian.

A week later, she went back to the maternity hospital for tests, during which, she says, they only did an ultrasound. She asked how long it would take to prepare the children’s documents and when she would receive her payment. She said she was told that they were waiting for the children’s DNA test, which would take about three weeks.

“It turns out that we gave birth to children and no one thought about us at all — no medical care, no psychological, no financial support, we had nothing. By that time, we had no salary, no daily allowance, no royalties,” — shares Anna, telling us that on March 25, she was evicted from her rented apartment and had to move to a hostel, where other surrogate mothers also lived. In May, she was released from this hostel and moved to a rented apartment in Saburtalo, the rent for which, as other women told her, was paid by the founder of the company.

Anna tells us that in the group chat, the company representatives were constantly asked when they would receive their due payment, but with no result. In the meantime, the time required for the DNA test had passed, and Anna went to Kinderly’s office, along with other surrogates: “We gathered about ten surrogate mothers in the office, we also saw the owners of the apartments there, it turned out that they were going there and fighting every day because they were not paying anyone anything on time.” According to Anna, they could not give her a definite answer at that meeting either, and then the company’s financial director immediately left for Armenia, left the management and stopped answering the phone. The other owner, Ruslan, was also out of contact.

“At that time, a new director was appointed to the company, who promised us that he would take Kinderly to a new level, but in reality, three days later, he told us that the company had gone bankrupt and we would not receive any money. On the same day, we went to the prosecutor’s office building located next door and filed a collective complaint. We also went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to find Armen and Ruslan, and we also involved the financial police in the case.”

The Public Registry website shows that the company’s founders did indeed submit a statement, according to which Armen Melikyan was to resign from the position of head and Giorgi Chapidze was to be appointed. However, the proceedings were terminated because the necessary documentation for this was not fully submitted. The decision to terminate the proceedings is the last information that can be found about Kinderly on the Public Registry portal.

“On the fourth day after moving into the apartment, the gas was shut off, I had no hot water. With a small child, I was in a terrible situation. Because I had complications after a cesarean section, I couldn’t even cook food for the child.”

Nina later realized that the company didn’t take proper care of her during her pregnancy either — as she told us, there were several cases when they didn’t have me take certain tests prescribed by the doctor, only bought hormonal drugs and iron, and gave me vitamins in the second trimester of pregnancy, but otherwise tried to save money on me — “I’m the kind of person who doesn’t argue — I would only say quietly, they probably know better.”

Nina also recalled that most of uncertainties began in February, after she gave birth by cesarean section and moved into a rented apartment.

“On the fourth day after moving into the apartment, the gas was shut off, I had no hot water. With a small child [Nina arrived in Georgia with her biological son], I was in a terrible situation. Because I had complications after the cesarean section, I couldn’t even cook food for the child. I called the curators and asked why this was happening. They replied that they had financial problems and everything would be resolved soon. I believed them too — I thought they would pay me soon. I sat quietly and didn’t complain. Then the apartment owners started coming, telling us that they hadn’t paid the rent and that we were losing the apartment,” Nina says, telling us that she went to the company’s office with other women living in the apartment, where she learned that there were surrogates who had been waiting for their salaries for four months.

This is the experience of just two women out of dozens of women who were unable to receive their due compensation after surrogacy and had their labor rights violated. Anna and Nina made their way to the Sapari lawyer using the snowball principle — the surrogate mothers had a group chat, where Kinderly representatives were also present, and at first they registered there and demanded compensation, but without any results; then other surrogate women added them to another chat, where dozens of women were present and discussed ways to protect their rights with a lawyer. It turned out that Anna and Nina had a similar challenge to those women who had given birth earlier. They were brought from Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, signed contracts with them, and after the birth and transfer of the babies to their biological parents, they were not paid.

The interests of many of them are being defended by Nino Andriashvili, a lawyer for the organization Sapari. At the same time, Nino Tarkhnishvili, a journalist for Radio Tavisupleba, has been working since February to bring the stories of women affected by Kinderly Georgia to readers. At the end of March, the surrogate women also appealed to the investigative agencies. On April 2, another article was published on Radio Tavisupleba, which Anna and Nina attribute to the fact that the investigative agencies became more interested in the case — “On April 4, investigators came to our hostel, and that’s where it started, they asked us to come for questioning at the prosecutor’s office, at the investigative committee.”

Why Is This Case Trafficking?

Nino Andriashvili became involved in the case after a Kazakh organization contacted her in February, providing information about surrogacy and connecting her with one of the women. Kinderly did not pay the Kazakh surrogate woman, whom Nino Andriashvili spoke to, the royalties stipulated in the contract. According to Nino, she contacted the prosecutor’s office and demanded a response, after which dozens of women who had the same problem gradually contacted her.

Nino told us that, at the same time as the investigation began, Kinderly tried to pressure the women. Specifically, he offered them $1,000 each on the condition that they return to their homeland, and promised to return the remaining thousands of dollars in parts.

“I just want the company to pay me what they owe, buy me a ticket, and send me home. I want to forget all this like a nightmare. I didn’t do anything wrong. I did everything meticulously for 9 months.”

“Some of the girls agreed to Kinderly’s pressure. The company also bought them tickets to leave the country. Obviously, it was in Kinderly’s interest to have the girls leave Georgia so that it would hinder the investigation and not be fully conducted,” said Nino. In contrast, the investigation’s interest was to create proper living conditions for the women and their young children and allow them to remain here until the investigation process was completed.

Nino also noted in her conversation with us that a protracted investigation process leads to, among other things, failure to hold perpetrators accountable in a timely manner, risks of destroying evidence and pressuring witnesses, and ultimately, influencing the verdict.

It is also worth noting that initially the investigation was initiated under Article 185 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, on damage to property, although Sapar and Nino Andriashvili requested that the qualification be changed and the investigation be continued under the article of trafficking. Later, on May 10, the Standing Commission under the Inter-Agency Coordination Council granted the women the status of victims. Already at the end of May, the investigative agencies also changed the qualification of the case and the investigation continues under Part 1 of Article 143 of the Criminal Code, which refers to trafficking in persons with prior knowledge, which is a form of exploitation and is punishable by up to five years in prison.

In international law, trafficking is defined in accordance with the United Nations Palermo Protocol and refers to: recruiting, transporting, transferring, concealing or accepting a person for the purpose of exploitation, using force and/or other forms of persuasion, fraud, deception, use of force or the vulnerability of a person, payment of a fee for consent, or the use of obtaining consent from a person who controls another person.

For example, as Nina told us, they lied to us that everything would be done according to the contract and took advantage of her vulnerable state — “They knew what situation we were in, how much we needed money. I just want the company to pay me the money I owed, buy me a ticket and send me home. I want to forget all this like a nightmare. I did nothing wrong. For 9 months I did everything meticulously, looked after the fetus, took care of myself, gave birth to twin girls [Nina, like Anna, gave birth to twins. Nina gave birth to girls, Anna – a girl and a boy] with love. I gave this world two lives, and in return for all this they left me on the street with the child. The stress after giving birth was added by the fact that we don’t know what to do, where to go, how to earn money. I’ve been in Georgia for three months and the company doesn’t even pay us for food properly. I just want them to pay me so I can leave”

Anna also arrived in Georgia with her child, leaving behind three other children in Russia and hoping to earn a salary through legal work and return, but after giving birth, due to non-payment of wages, she was forced to stay in the country. As she says, the conditions in the hostel where they moved in the second half of March were unbearable: “A week after moving, they turned off the heating, and there was no freon in the air conditioners and they only blew cold air — at the end of March it was still cold and raining. At first, there was no washing machine, and there were 12 of us women there, all with children. They also turned off our water for a month, and we were without water for the last 5 days. Finally, the landlady came and forcibly evicted us because we did not pay the rent.”

While we were working on the article, Anna left Georgia and returned to her homeland. Her mother bought her a ticket. She says she will return to Georgia to attend the court hearing.

Nino Andriashvili tells us that trafficking should have been obvious at the very first stage of the investigation, when the women were interviewed, because there was evidence of transportation, deception, and exploitation of their vulnerability, as well as labor exploitation — “All the women agreed due to difficult social conditions and ultimately ended up as victims of labor exploitation.”

According to Nino, if the qualification of trafficking had been established at the initial stage of the investigation, the victims would not have had to live in the conditions we have already discussed in the article. They would have been provided with shelter, psychological support, and food.

While working on the article, we tried to contact Kinderly Georgia representatives, but to no avail: the number listed on their website is not registered. A woman answered the number listed on the Public Registry page, who told us that she worked for the company three years ago and does not know why this number is still listed. She told us that she has no contact with the company representatives.

One of the company’s owners, Ruslan Tymoshenko, spoke to Radio Tavisupleba in a written interview at the end of February and said that financial reserves had been exhausted because too many contracts had been signed for apartments for surrogate mothers. They had had delays before, but not like this, and this “came as a shock” even to them.

“We fully understand the situation in which the surrogate mothers find themselves. These girls come to a foreign country, they have no one except us, we understand that. Unfortunately, they also manipulate us. All debts will be repaid. No other option is being considered,” Tymoshenko told Radio Tavisupleba.

According to him, biological parents face problems with documentation, and sometimes the process is delayed — “All this has significantly undermined trust in the company both in Ukraine and Georgia, and now only paying the money will not solve the problem. I take responsibility for this process and we will actively work to prevent similar problems from arising. After this situation, internal changes will also be made, both financially and in the direction of relations with surrogate mothers.”

Law and Surrogacy

The speculation and legislative or political process related to surrogacy in Georgia, which has been ongoing for years, is related to conservative sentiments, the position of the church, or populist steps, and the rights of the surrogate woman or the child are less part of the public discussion.

First, there was Ilia II’s 2014 Christmas epistle, in which he called children born through surrogacy doomed to lack of love from the very beginning, and said that children born through artificial insemination would be problematic. The then Prime Minister, Irakli Gharibashvili, later responded to a journalist’s question by saying only that it is controversial in many countries and that he was not an expert, and in 2023 he made a homophobic statement – surrogacy needs to be regulated, perhaps only for Georgian couples, because according to available information, children born in this way may be “taken away by the same-sex couples.”

It is unclear what Gharibashvili meant, not because this wording is incorrect — but rather because there is a 2020 decree according to which:

“A couple consisting of a man and a woman whose purpose is to raise a child conceived in vitro may be a party to the contract if they:

1. a) are married and at least 1 year has passed since the marriage;
2. b) have been in de facto cohabitation for at least the last 1 year.”

Currently, surrogacy (in vitro fertilization) is allowed in Georgia:

• For the purpose of treating infertility, as well as in cases where there is a risk of transmission of a genetic disease from the wife or husband, using the couple’s or a donor’s gamete cells or embryos, if the couple’s written consent has been obtained;
• If the woman does not have a uterus, the embryo resulting from fertilization can be transferred to the uterus of another woman (“surrogate mother”) and raised (written consent of the couple is required).

According to the law, in the case of a newborn, the couple is considered the parents, and the donor or surrogate mother does not have the right to be recognized as the child’s parent. In addition, according to the order of the Minister of Justice, when taking an infant out of the country, it is necessary that both parents be indicated in the documents, otherwise the child will not be able to leave the country.

According to a 2020 statement by the Ministry of Justice, 98% of those using surrogacy services in Georgia are foreign couples.

Georgia is among the few countries where surrogacy is allowed. Not only commercial, but also charitable surrogacy is allowed in a very small number of countries. Commercial surrogacy is allowed in several US states, although it is expensive because of the high taxes, while in order to insure against labor exploitation, the rights of surrogate mothers are maximally protected. Ukraine, Georgia, India and several other countries are considered cheap commercial destinations, most of which are operated by the world’s leading Georgian company – New Life. An international investigative material was also prepared about the activities of New Life , in which journalists from several media outlets were involved. You can read the material on iFact.