Three years ago, Olga and Daniel (pseudonyms), 40 years old from Hamburg, decided to resort to a surrogate mother, but surrogate pregnancy is legally prohibited in Germany and the parents of children born in this way are forced to wage a legal battle in the German courts in order to have their paternity recognized.
Olga has German citizenship but was born and raised in Russia. So the couple decided to search for information about the surrogate motherhood market in Russia. But since 2022 foreigners are no longer allowed to conclude surrogate maternity contracts in Russia.
After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, many international agencies that act as intermediaries between clients and surrogate mothers moved to Georgia. So Olga and Daniel traveled there.
Georgia...the new destination for surrogate mothers
In recent years, Georgia, located in the Caucasus region and with a population of about 3.7 million people, has turned into something like an international center for surrogate motherhood programs.
According to the Georgian Agency for the Development of Public Services, there were more than 3,000 registered surrogate mothers in the country at the end of 2023. 5,393 babies have been born through surrogate motherhood programs in Georgia since 2012.
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the number of births via surrogate mothers in Georgia has increased significantly. While about 300 surrogate mothers gave birth to children in 2021, this number rose to 1,172 in 2023.
Anastasia, 39, is a Russian surrogate mother working in Georgia. She has an adult daughter and has already had three experiences as a surrogate mother. Her first time working as a surrogate mother was in 2021. This is how she earned money to make a down payment on a property.
Anastasia completed her first two surgeries as a surrogate mother in Russia, while the third for a couple from Japan was completed in Georgia through a branch of the clinic located in Moscow. As with other surrogates, Anastasia returned to Russia after the embryo was implanted and then traveled again to Georgia in the 22nd week of pregnancy.
"I was staying in a rented apartment with another surrogate mother who was pregnant with twins. This program was easier and more comfortable for me, but maybe I was just lucky in choosing the clinic. I heard from other women who gave birth in Georgia that they had problems. For example, some of them had to wait a long time after giving birth to be paid," Anastasia tells DW. The woman says she is ready to be a surrogate mother again.
According to various estimates, about 19 clinics in Georgia currently provide such services. The average cost of the package of services at brokerage agencies in Tbilisi or Batumi is between a third and a half of the cost in other countries, ranging between about 45 thousand and 55 thousand euros.
As several surrogate mothers who have already participated in programs in Georgia told DW, the average wage offered to mothers ranges between 18,000 and 28,000 euros. But there are also additional fees, for example in the case of giving birth to twins.
Demand for surrogate mothers from Ukraine
Daniel and Olga from Germany told DW that they spent several months in Georgia searching for a suitable agency.
“They very quickly allowed us to see a list of women from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Georgia, explained the procedures in detail and provided us with contact information for lawyers who help with all the formalities. It was a little concerning that not all agencies were able to provide accurate information about the health status of some of the surrogate mothers,” they added.
Olga says that because the couple works in the medical field, their questions, especially those related to mental health and genetic diseases, may have been too in-depth.
She adds: "We chose a 30-year-old woman from Ukraine who had previously worked as a surrogate mother for a couple from Europe." The Russian-Georgian agency organized a conversation via Zoom that lasted one hour. But that did not seem sufficient to us to make a decision.”
In the spring of 2024, Olga and Daniel traveled to Tiflis to meet Elena (pseudonym). The agency had brought Elena to Georgia to attend this meeting after lengthy discussions. But Elena herself made a good impression on the couple from Hamburg. She spoke about her experiences as a surrogate mother, showed photos of her children and admitted that she wanted to use the proceeds to renovate her apartment.
“Initially we were told that the surrogate mother would stay in a rented apartment in Tiflis throughout the pregnancy. But it later became clear that after the embryo implantation, Elena would return to her homeland in Ukraine for a few months, where the war was raging,” Olga and Daniel reported.
Activists criticize the laws
Lawyer Nino Bogoyradze confirmed in her interview with DW that Georgian legislation contains a loophole as it only regulates relations between surrogate mothers, potential parents and clinics, but does not take the role of mediation agencies into account in any way. Surrogate mothers often suffer from this.
She added that surrogate mothers in Georgia have only limited rights anyway. Most issues related to pregnancy, medical decisions, and wages are not regulated by the country's laws, but are regulated by a contract between the parties. The state also does not specify any guarantees or minimum social standards regarding the terms of the contract.
Surrogate mothers are not allowed to keep the child, withdraw from the program after the embryo is implanted, or abort the pregnancy. Some human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch and the International Women's Health Alliance believe that the prevailing practice in the Georgian market violates women's right to reproductive self-determination.
“Agencies are driven by material interests.”
"Mediation agencies often talk about their special mission being to help people get the child they have always wanted. But in reality they are primarily driven by financial interests and that is why they exploit the vulnerable situation of surrogate mothers and put pressure on potential parents," explained researcher Olga Doletskaya from the University of Leeds in an interview with DW.
Olga and Daniel agree with this assessment. “We were constantly hinted that we should make the decision as quickly as possible,” says Olga. “It was claimed that there were several other couples interested in our surrogate mother and that we should hurry up.”
The mediation agency also repeatedly confirmed that it brought the potential surrogate mother to Georgia at its own expense even though this service was not stipulated in the contract.
“At one point, when one of the agency representatives noticed my emotional state, he asked me how long I wanted to remain childless,” Olga says. “I felt like I was being manipulated.” The couple returned from Georgia to Germany with mixed feelings and decided temporarily to abandon the idea of resorting to a surrogate mother.
