Study finds tight controls on migrant surrogates in Georgia

Georgia’s surrogacy industry has expanded since 2022, and clinics are drawing women from Central Asia through social media, according to new University of Oxford research. The study says migrant surrogates can face close control over their movement, housing and behavior once they arrive.

The research, published in Mobilities, was led by Oxford anthropologist Dr. Polina Vlasenko at the university’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society. It examines a market that has grown as Georgia’s surrogacy rules remain under political scrutiny, including after a 2023 draft law to limit commercial surrogacy to citizens and residents was rejected.

Vlasenko’s study focuses on intermediaries: agents, clinic coordinators and, in some cases, former surrogates. According to Oxford, these figures help arrange contracts, travel, money and accommodation, but they also play a major role in enforcing expectations around women’s conduct during pregnancy.

The study says intermediaries often operate beside the formal legal and medical systems while receiving little attention in policy debates. Oxford said their influence can extend into surrogates’ living arrangements, medical compliance, social contact and daily routines.

Social media recruitment

Most women interviewed for the research entered surrogacy after seeing advertising on Instagram or TikTok, according to the findings. Oxford said clinics, agencies and former surrogates use those platforms to identify and recruit potential participants from across Central Asia.

The study also found that some surrogates later become recruiters themselves. Oxford said nearly one in five women working as surrogates become agents, using their own experience in the process to bring in other women.

Vlasenko said rising international demand and a smaller local pool of surrogates have pushed Georgia’s market to depend more heavily on workers recruited from abroad. She said intermediaries do more than introduce women to clinics, arguing that they also manage emotions, enforce conduct and oversee shared living spaces.

Housing, payments and surveillance

According to Oxford, many surrogates are expected to stay in Georgia throughout their pregnancies. The study says they often live together in clinic-provided apartments, a setup that can make oversight easier.

Oxford said clinics and intermediaries encouraged women to report rule breaches by other surrogates, sometimes with financial incentives. The study describes this as creating peer monitoring and distrust among women living in the same housing.

The research also points to financial arrangements as a form of control. Oxford said staged payments tied to compliance can restrict women’s mobility and increase pressure to follow clinic and intermediary requirements.

The study argues that weak regulation and limited state oversight leave room for intermediaries to work in legal and ethical gray areas while serving international clients. Oxford said this can harm migrant surrogate women, particularly when their working and living conditions are shaped by people who sit outside the most visible parts of the industry.

Fieldwork in Kazakhstan and Georgia

The findings draw on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Kazakhstan and Georgia between 2023 and 2024. Oxford said Vlasenko interviewed more than 100 people, including surrogates, egg donors, medical workers, agents and intended parents.

The research is part of the Reproductive Mobilities project at COMPAS and Oxford’s School of Anthropology. According to Oxford, the project studies how responses to involuntary childlessness in Central Asia have changed over the past two decades alongside social and medical shifts.

Vlasenko’s study says migrant surrogates’ experiences in Georgia are still poorly documented despite the country’s emergence as a major surrogacy hub. It raises questions about how cross-border surrogacy should be regulated and what protections exist for women working in a system shaped by both care and control.

This story draws on original reporting from Phys.org.