Since 2022, Georgia’s surrogacy industry has boomed, with oversubscribed clinics now recruiting women from across Central Asia via Instagram and TikTok. New research conducted at the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) provides unprecedented insight into the hidden systems of emotional control sustaining Georgia’s transnational surrogacy market.
Published in Mobilities, the new study by Oxford anthropologist Dr Polina Vlasenko comes at a time when Georgia’s surrogacy laws are under intense scrutiny, with a draft law in 2023 to restrict commercial surrogacy to citizens and residents rejected.
The research documents how ‘intermediaries’ - agents, clinic coordinators, and often former surrogates - are at the centre of the industry, operating alongside legal frameworks and medical practices, yet remaining largely invisible in policy and public debate.
Beyond securing surrogates’ entry into the market - coordinating contract terms, travel, finances, and accommodation – intermediaries employ forms of emotional control that can immobilise women once on site, regulating their social interactions, daily routines, and compliance with legal and clinical requirements. As a result, intermediaries exert considerable influence over surrogates' working and living conditions, as well as their health and wellbeing.
The findings also demonstrate how gaps in regulation and limited state oversight allows intermediaries to operate within ethical and legal grey areas to meet the demands of international clients, often to the detriment of migrant surrogate women.
Key findings include:
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Recruitment via Instagram and TikTok: Most women interviewed entered surrogacy through advertising on social media platforms, primarily Instagram and TikTok, where clinics, agencies, and former surrogates recruit prospective candidates.
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Surrogates become recruiters: Almost one in five women operating as surrogates become agents; incentivised to use their experience to recruit new participants.
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A climate of surveillance: Most surrogates are required to remain in Georgia for the duration of their pregnancies, often living in communal, clinic-provided apartments. Clinics and intermediaries encouraged women to report rule violations by other surrogates through offering financial incentives, creating a culture of peer surveillance and mistrust.
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Financial control and restricted mobility: The financial structure of surrogacy in Georgia reinforces control over surrogates’ mobility through staged payments tied to compliance.
While Georgia has become a major surrogacy hub, the experiences of migrant surrogates and the infrastructures shaping their mobility are poorly documented. The research raises questions about how transnational surrogacy is regulated and the protections available to migrant surrogate workers operating in legally and ethically complex environments.
Dr Polina Vlasenko, University of Oxford Researcher, said: “Rising international demand and a shrinking local labour pool have produced a market in Georgia increasingly reliant on surrogate workers recruited across borders.
“Georgia’s surrogacy hub operates through systems in which intermediaries do more than connect surrogates to clinics. They govern emotions, discipline conduct, and supervise communal living.Recognising the central role of these people makes visible the emotional control sustaining the industry and the entanglement of care and control in cross-border surrogacy.”
The research draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Kazakhstan and Georgia between 2023 and 2024, including interviews with more than 100 surrogates, egg donors, medical staff, agents, and intended parents.
The study forms part of the research project Reproductive Mobilities, based at COMPAS and the University of Oxford’s School of Anthropology. The project examines how responses to involuntary childlessness in Central Asia have been shaped by changing social and medical landscapes over the last two decades.
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Notes to editors
Media contact:
Georgia Bailey
Communications Officer, COMPAS
Email: Georgia.bailey@compas.ox.ac.uk
Excerpts from interviewees:
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“I can see that surrogacy is a gold mine for Georgia, but it is also very profitable for surrogates. Everyone comes here because they have a problem. Nobody comes just for fun. Back home, 300 dollars is an average monthly salary that feeds an entire family; here, I could have it all to myself, saving a final lump sum for an apartment. They also take care of the housing, tickets, tests, everything.” - Sholpan, surrogate.
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Following her sixth embryo transfer – unpaid, as the clinic director framed it as her “last chance” – she finally became pregnant. But since she had started a blog as an agent, the clinic director, Irakli, explicitly linked continued housing support to her recruitment efforts: “He told me: ‘bring other women too’. If you work well for my clinic, I’ll provide you with housing.” (Sholpan, surrogate)
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“I almost died, and they treat me like cattle.” - Aliya, surrogate.
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“They do not like how they are treated – they want to be treated like queens or VIPs. The most difficult part is behaving well with surrogates, not snapping at them.” - Lisa, clinic manager.
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“I tell them I’ve done the program myself, and nothing bad happened. To sell organs or traffic you, they’d need someone young and beautiful – not a forty-year-old woman of ninety kilos like me! You can even video call me – I’ll show you my apartment... When they hear from someone who’s been through it, they start to trust.” - Sholpan, surrogate.
About COMPAS
The Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) is a research centre based within the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. Since 2003, COMPAS has established an international reputation for original research and policy relevance. It undertakes multi-disciplinary research, publication, teaching, and user engagement activities with a broad set of academic and non-academic users worldwide, and houses long-standing initiatives The Global Exchange on Migration and Diversity, and The Migration Observatory.
About the University of Oxford
Oxford University has been placed number 1 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for the tenth year running, and number 3 in the QS World Rankings 2024. At the heart of this success are the twin-pillars of our ground-breaking research and innovation and our distinctive educational offer.
Oxford is world-famous for research and teaching excellence and home to some of the most talented people from across the globe. Our work helps the lives of millions, solving real-world problems through a huge network of partnerships and collaborations. The breadth and interdisciplinary nature of our research alongside our personalised approach to teaching sparks imaginative and inventive insights and solutions.
Through its research commercialisation arm, Oxford University Innovation, Oxford is the highest university patent filer in the UK and is ranked first in the UK for university spinouts, having created more than 300 new companies since 1988. Over a third of these companies have been created in the past five years. The university is a catalyst for prosperity in Oxfordshire and the United Kingdom, contributing around £16.9 billion to the UK economy in 2021/22, and supports more than 90,400 full time jobs.
Journal
Mobilities