How twins separated at birth and sold for adoption were reunited by TikTok - BBC World Service
Amy and Ano are twins, but just after they were born they were taken from their mother and sold to separate families.
Click here to subscribe to our channel 👉🏽 bbc.in/3VyyriM
They found out about each other by chance and as they delved into their past, they realised thousands of babies in Georgia were stolen from hospitals and sold for adoption, some as recently as 2005. Now they want answers.
0:00 Intro
01:30 How Georgia's Got Talent helped solve a mystery of stolen babies in Georgia
04:25 Twins Amy (Tako) Khvitia and Ano Sartania meet for the first time
05:34 The Facebook group that first exposed a baby-trafficking scandal
08:11 A mother confesses the dark secret of baby-selling at a Georgian hospital
06:58 The truth behind an adoption scandal
15:45 What is the Georgian government doing to tackle baby-trafficking?
16:35 The stolen twins confront their families
17:39 How Facebook helped the twins discover their biological family
21:25 A suitcase buried in the ground… and a dark secret
26:35 Should the twins meet their biological mother for the first time?
37:25 Reflections on a dark chapter in Georgia's history
To watch more investigative journalism from our award-winning BBC teams check out this documentary playlist, perfect for the biggest screen in your home: • All BBC World Service ...
Credits:
Producer Directors: Fay Nurse and Woody Morris
Producer: Nino Shonia
Filmed and edited by: Woody Morris
Narration by: Mitra Djalili
Additional camera: Ed Hanson, Fay Nurse and Iago Gogilashvili
BBC 100 Women Executive Producer: Golnoosh Golshani
----------------
This is the official BBC World Service KZhead channel.
If you like what we do, you can also find us here:
Instagram 👉🏽 / bbcworldservice
Twitter 👉🏽 / bbcworldservice
Facebook 👉🏽 / bbcworldservice
BBC World Service website 👉🏽 www.bbc.co.uk/worldserviceradio
Thanks for watching and subscribing!
#BBCWorldService #WorldService
Important point to know is that back in those days, men were not allowed inside maternity hospitals (and even female relatives were not allowed). Both me and my brother were born in the second maternity hospital and I know the stories of how my dad was waiting outside desperate for the news and how my mum could only communicate through the window. Imagining all those poor women, vulnerable and alone, unprotected right after childbirth being lied to and decived like that, having their babies torn away from them is breaking my heart.
I was thinking. Where is the father during the coma or whatever is done to the mothers until they steal the babies? But now it makes sense. Feels so unreal that these things happened to so many families and no one could do anything about it!!!
Do you (and your brother) also have being stolen and don't know your real mother? 😳
@the_Tigro No, no, we were just born there. I was just saying about men not allowed in. My father and the rest of the family had to wait outside of the building while my mum was giving birth. That was standard in post soviet birthing units.
@@tamaraedgar8686was it the standard during soviet times?
@@kawaiilotus I believe so. Not sure since when but pretty standard in 60s, and up to probably early 00s. In all maternity hospitals not just that one, only mothers were allowed in. And babies were kept in nursery rooms, not always with mums.
I cant imagine what the mothers and children felt. Mothers think their children are dead and the children have been sold. This is the height of EVIL
I'd argue killing 6 million Jews and starting a world war that killed millions more is considerably worse.
Money talks
People do this all over the world. Missonaries in Africa will pressure poor parents to relinquish their parental rights, there is also a huge scandal in South Korea about corruption in international adoptions. In Canada we had the 60s scoop. People's desire for a perfect family drives this industry, and it's awful and often unregulated. I remember in 2020 a KZheadr Myka Stauffer "rehomed" the austistic child she got from China. It's disgusting, and if adopted people speak out on it, we are just ungrateful.
Right! Everyone just goes directly to hell. I'm in disbelief and sadden. 😔
Absolutely! Awful monsters who did this
My twins were stolen in 1982..still hoping to find them...greetings from Croatia.
da bilo je toga i kod nas! ja sam rođena 88 i posvojena sam, našla sam majku i ispričala mi je istu priču iako ima puno čudnih detalja…stvarno se nadam da ćete ih pronaći
🙏🏻🙏🏻
My prayers are with you.
So heartbreaking. I’m very sorry this happened to you.
Praying
Govt. of Georgia should subsidize DNA tests for anyone who comes forward to participate in the search!
I honestly don't think the money is there at this level. But with the EU candidacy, there will be both some level of pressure to come clean and resources for the technical aspects.
@@BlackCat69909 if they are not in the EU they shouldn't be allowed in until this is addressed.
so they can implicate themselves? theyre the ones who did this my guy!
Wonder how many people would trust the gov DNA tests though...
DNA would sort things out in short order.
Tamuna really deserved this recognition! I think she also deserves the Pulitzer Prize as the best investigator Journalist ✨💘
Absolutely agree. She did this mostly from her phone with minimal budget probably which is even more astonishing.
Yes definitely agree with you too!
Maybe she will get a Nobel... eventually
🎯
@@moonhunter9993I’ve given up on thinking Nobel prizes mean anything. It feels like a scam too
Imagine 19 years of grieving only to find out your children were alive the whole time. What an emotional roller-coaster!
I am from Georgia, it's a sh*thole, if you plan to have family in here you should expect the worst
@@jakenake3401I can’t imagine that it’s as bad now as it was during Soviet days.
@@Alex.Kalashnik It's much better then soviet days but even 1960's USA quality of life was better then 2020 Georgia
This happens more than you know, I came across a woman who was one of these illegally adopted children also stolen from a hospital where her mother had been told that she had died, but it wasn't in Georgia it was in a different country and it is not uncommon for countries to do this sort of thing when they suspect that the person is too poor or they think they can get away with it. I had a friend who was my best friend when I lived in the United States long story short her mother gave birth to twins the doctor put one child up for illegal adoption and it was before there was common to do an ultrasound by the way so you can just figure out how long ago this was and she didn't even know she had a twin to one day when the doctor has died his wife finds the papers that show all the illegal adoptions he's made over the last 40 years names dates places etcetera and she's finally informed that she has a twin, that might have helped her years beforeby giving her a bone marrow transplant but unfortunately by the time she found out about her her twin sister had already gotten hepatitis the kind that doesn't go away and it meant that she could never have bone marrow from her to save her life. The irony is unlike these twins who really felt that they missed each other and they wanted to get to know each other her twin didn't want to know a thing about her her twin didn't care she had had a fantastic life with Rich family and lots of everything she wanted she did not want to even know a twin sister who was only interested in seeing her out of curiosity more than anything else and telling her about her family background just in case she wanted to know obviously she didn't. And by the way thinking if you're thinking it's because she would have asked her for bone marrow the answer is no she wasn't going to ask her, because she had found out long before that she might have a twin because somebody had seen somebody who looked exactly like her in a hospital and she her first question was does she have cancer and was told know she has hepatitis but she couldn't possibly be related to you... And thenafter this doctor does she finds out otherwise. It's not the first time but I'm not surprised about Georgia pulling this kind of stunt considering how many babies they like to put up for adoption.
@@jakenake3401if it's better now then it was then at least something has come out of all the scandal for the better, but I'm not surprised by what you say because frankly I have heard some pretty bad stories especially about how the Georgians treat children in orphanages.
My brother was adopted. We found his mom. The first thing she said was “ they took you from me, i wanted to keep you!” ❤
My mother's friend was unmarried and 17 years old in the 1960s. Her baby son was a few days old. When she and the baby's grandmother went to the Dr office they told the mother to sign some papers while they weighed the baby in the other room. When the young mother went into the room there was only the grandmother and a nurse. The baby boy was gone. They told her that she was too young to be a good mother and that the baby was gone and will be adopted. She was helpless. The young mother went into a deep depression and slipped into drugs for years. She eventually married another man, and had more children. When she was in her 40s, she received a phone call asking her name and if she'd given birth to a son in that former year. It was her first son. He'd only just found out that he was adopted, and started searching for his mother. His adoptive parents did not know that he was stolen from his mother. He had a good childhood. They began a relationship and since then he knows his mother and family. It is a beautiful ending to a tragic beginning.
Wow that’s so sad 😢
I have biological and adopted children. One thing I can say is that when you adopt older children like mine, ages 7, 9, and 11 at adoption, they understand why the government separated them from their parents. You don't get stolen children although you have children that faced a lot of trauma because of their parents' lifestyles and who are not easily able to forgive them. It's a broken world. I now am more paranoid and willing to consider what others call "conspiracy theories" as possibly being true. People out there so corrupt that they would steal children and parents out there who have very minimal decency towards their own children that it is unimaginable.
hey love, I am an adopted stolen child... @@lorimav
@@dancing_qu33n No angel here at all! The difference is that you know very well what you'd be getting into and I was naive. Nevertheless, they do tend to settle down in their twenties and now I have young men that fix my car, repair my electric and have patience with my lack of knowledge of new technology.
This story should be on the news all over the world! Georgia is probably not the only country where this has happened… Kudos to BBC World Service!
World wide conspiracy 💔
this happened in the ddr alot too. *former east germany the insane entitlement and pure evil cruelty so many higher ups did (do) in suppressed and in poorer countries is unfathomable wow
I agree with you, mothers should start searching and finding their stolen children
@@dgdg2495 99% weren't stolen. they were given by them. it just there wasn't a proper adoption process.
Definitely not @@dgdg2495. There are bad adoption practices in the United States and all over Europe.
The part when one victim says: They had a frozen baby to calm the situation down killed me :( Can't imagine how those people were so evil :(
Они были продажными😢...
Following orders, only the front line. Evil doings to stay alive, 😢, bloody awful.
Trust and believe that there are "parents" that's just as worse as those working in the hospital. It's one thing for a stranger to aim to benefit from doing someone in. But just imagine a child's parent doing the exact same thing......and believing that they will some how magically feel great about their doing the likes, once Time fast forwards. Some folk are really interesting.
I read the same about Spain too. They had a similar newborn trafficking system.
@@ulla-dc9ih I read the same about Ireland. Just imagine the millions of babies across the world 😢
And this is the reason why Denmark has decided to ban international adoptions indefinitely, because child trafficking has to stop!!!!!
This was already stopped in Georgia years ago
It is horrible that unsuspecting prospective adoptive parents in the USA and other places were told that the huge amounts of money they had to give represented " fees' as well. Our family is HUGE on family genealogy connections, NO WAY would our cousins have EVER attempted to adopt children that they knew were stolen. I mean this!
@@bonnylouwho76 Most people wouldn't adopt children who were stolen from good parents. The adoptive parents are victims of this scam as well. If anyone knew their child was stolen and they didn't care as long as they got a baby, they should be prosecuted alongside the kidnappers.
In Serbia,(Yougoslavia) same problem. A woman gives birth to a child, the doctors tell her that her child has died, and they don't want to give it to her to bury. They tell her that the hospital does it. Children were sold to rich people all over the world. So sad..
And in Spain
I’m from Germany and I don’t know why, but I always had this fear of it happening to me when I give birth and choose the wrong hospital for giving birth. Ppl called me paranoid and I still can’t explain where this fear comes from. I just know that I choose a hospital where I was able to stay close to my newborn 24/7 and never having him out of sight, so I definitely know he is mine and was never switched out and nobody was able to steal him ether.
So sad.... its horrible, I really can't find words for this.
Nada postoji putem komercijalnih dnk testova da se bar neke osobe pronadu...sad je to povoljno i dostupno.
Satralo me ovo s Darkom čovječe.... Bog dao snage našim ženama da se izbore da se to više ne događa. Šaljem ti punooo pozdrava i želim sve najbolje.
I don't think the one twin is really angry at her Mama. She's angry with the situation and has no where else to lay that anger at the moment..
agreed & I think in either case no matter the outcome the mother was as much a victim as the twins. Either she too was lied to or she was forced to sell them or accept that they were sold & get little if anything for it. Still I have to say if she was the mother especially after the fall of communism I would think she would have made her own effort to find the twins if she had been forced to sell or accept them being sold. The fact that she didn't seem to be hunting for them would lead me to think she probably thought they died & accepted that they had & maybe that was part of why she left Georgia. In either case I can't really see justification to blame the birth mom. If it were me I'd blame everyone involved the hospital doctors government & hospital admins who did it especially if they lied or threatened the birth mother let alone any government idiots continuing to protect those evil responsible & profiting from this type of thing especially now. Now if birth mom is rich and what not then maybe because again having money & having any hint they were alive I would think she would search for them.
@@craighanson-rc1md I mean, the mom was in the facebook group, that's how she got into contact with them so she was indeed looking for them
she just said that she is angry, obviously because of the situation. everyone else wo understood it differently lacks of understanding statements in contexts
yikes no. she said she's angry - that means she's angry. her sister said she doesn't like hugs and that she only hugged her the first time they met after she gave consent. Ano was angry beforehand and didn't want to see the mother because she thought she was going to lie, and went in support of her sister. then the mother literally rushed them and grabbed her to hug her, while being backed against the wall, and a camera filming them. she was so uncomfortable the whole time. i'd be angry too. they only found the mother because they went semi-viral and their sister reached out, the mother wasn't a part of the facebook group and said nothing about searching for them. the complexity and layers of emotions involved in this situation don't negate her original emotion of anger in any way. some people really love twisting people's emotions that they literally verbalise to fit their ideas, don't they?
Has anyone here ever grieved? Grief for the stolen years Grief for the stolen lifelong love of a twin Grief for the stolen lifelong love of a mother Grief for the possibilities denied her during formative years Grief for bad decisions that might not have been made had things been as they were meant to be Anger is a stage of grief. It isn’t even uncommon to be angry at the person who died and left you behind.
I was 18 and unmarried,but living with the babies father,when my son was born in 1972 in Canada.A nun came to my hospital room and told me I was not old enough to look after a baby,that I should give it to the 'church',I told her I was not interested.She came back the next day and tried to shame me more,again telling me my son would be better off if given to a catholic home.I had to go to the nurses station and tell them to stop her from coming back.1972 in Canada.
That is horrible but she probably really thought that it would be the best thing for your baby. At least it wasn’t nefarious and your baby wasn’t stolen.
@@judymurray191 Well the way she spoke down to me and diminished me was certainly NOT pleasant.She had NO RIGHT!! And,being a new mother,no matter how old that mother is,it's threatening.Just because she didn't literally grab my baby and run doesn't make it less traumatic.Geez,that's like saying well you got raped but at least you weren't killed.
Unimaginable!
@@judymurray191How was repeatedly talking down to, and judging a young mother, not nefarious? Save the apologist bs.
The same "good thinking" are against what we called IVG in France (interruption volontaire de grossesse --> "volontary abortion" ? ~ I don't know the name in english).
It never ceases to amaze me how separated relatives especially twins have a strong feeling they are missing someone in their lives…like they have an empty space within. Incredible stories. Thank you for this video. 😊
The *order of things will always supercede what folk *choose to do. In the same light that twins can have a strong sense of their other half that they spent 9 months in a womb with, trust and believe that any child that had been separated from their parents (and it is the doing of the parent) .....that child knows. As instincts supercede what one thinks and feels on a superficial and visual level.
My twin cousins could feel each other if one of them was ill or feeling unwell, even being very far from each other, like in different countries, and they were always right. They even have physical marcs. For example if one of them gets ill the other one gets pimples on his face
Hm.... i know there is often a stronger connection between twins, even when apart... but i also wonder if not quite a lot of ppl have that feeling of missing smth/someone... i've felt like that all my life and i am very sure i do not have a twin, or didnt have.. its Just the feeling of beeing incompleete.
@@sungli1 past life stuff
@@lynnmoses3563no, cognitive biases and flawed emotional reasoning. Humans naturally look for patterns to try to make sense of the world.
I had my first child out of wedlock and I can tell you that EVERYONE had an opinion about what I should do with him. People were downright arrogant or rude. The church had their opinion too. I kept him and raised him and I cant imagine my life without him. My heart bleeds for those poor women that 'lost'their children. Free DNA testing should become available for those who are searching. That way both parties are willing to be discovered. Ty for an amazing though sad video. Blessings to those who seek.
❤thank you for being a MOTHER❤❤❤❤
not the same ....
Good for you for keeping your baby. My grandmother was 13 when she married my grandpa aged 20, and the couple had 13 children and lived a long and happy life. A girl is ready to give birth when NATURE SAYS SO. Children need food, love and security. They are resilient and figure the rest out on their own. People today are smothering and over-parenting their kids. It’s ridiculous.
@@peacelover8245 Oh mu gosh, how unaware can you be? What about rape and rape'incest victims forced to become pregnant by an attacker? GIrls and women who had no intention of having sex and conceiving babies or even KNEW what that was all about? Please don't generalize.
That suitcase story is so devastating, imagine doctors with sworn oaths being so utterly cruel😳
They may even be fake doctors as many going around with fake certificates!
Omg😢. I can imagine what a mom goes through during a pregnant period just to end up her baby to be stolen😮😮
Horrível. Eu nasci em casa dos meus avós,mas o meu irmão mais novo nasceu em uma maternidade em 79 e a minha mãe sempre disse que lho pediram e até para dar. Imaginem o sofrimento da minha mãe naquele momento. isto parece ter sido iniciado nos anos 60/70 em todos os países. Em Portugal aconteceu e continua a acontecer o mesmo com seitas e igrejas envolvidas e o estado também. Aqui não há ignorantes.
Սա աշխարհով մեկ է տարածված😢😢 👏👏👏ՏԷՐ ՈՂՈՐՄՅԱ, ՏԷՐ ՈՂՈՐՄՅԱ, ՏԷՐ ՈՂՈՐՄՅԱ ՀԻՍՈՒՍ ՓՐԿԻՉ մեզ ՈՂՈՐՄՅԱ, ԱՄԵՆ
You can imagine?! I can't!
@@antoniajane5442 Ճիշտն ասած ես ինքս էլ չեմ կարող պատկերացնել դա, մեր երկրում էլ է կատարվել և սա էլի եմ ասում աշխարհով մեկ (🥲🥲բիզնես է): Երբ անծանոթի համար ենք լացում ապա ինչքան դժվար է մայրիկի համար?
As Aww q❤@@RosadosVentos963
The same thing happened in Serbia in the same period exactly from the 70s up to 2000 when people started investigating and talking too much about it in the media (I mean people who lost their babies). What that means is that this human trafficking is organized by the government itself!
Of course! everyone was involved! Shameless "people".
Yes!!!
I am shocked
@@monaakemi8451 I am not, it's pretty much in every country like that.
It didn't start in 70s, but in 45s.
I have always felt that two of my newborn babies were stolen. I gave birth to my boys at 7 months, and they did not let me see them until they claimed they were dead. But, I have no proof. I guess all I can do is pray that they had good lives.
God bless you
Put your DNA OUT THERE
Your children may be alive, and may even have kids of their own. I don't know where you are from, but try joining a group like 'I am searching' in your country. If there isn't one already, try starting one? You could also contacting lawyers and also try doing a DNA test and lodging your results publicly.
I think about you time to time. Have you found out any information? Did you put your DNA out there? Do you know how? Prayers to you. ALISA
Try to get your dna done.
Everyone that was involved in this needs to be sent to prison for rest of their life!
Wait a minute... think of the children if the families they were brought up in are destroyed. The officials and hospital staff who were making money on this should, of course go to jail, but adoptive parents are in much more of a gray situation.
Hell is not big enough to fit them all.
I'm thankful that we have tools like DNA and genealogists and the internet nowadays. I hope they find answers .
True! And internet!
Another video on the DNA search.
that's what those people back than probably not planned with.
Except some nations ban paternity tests.
@@Ay-xq7mjtoo bad....so sad. This is a world wide CRIME. Maybe INTERPOL should be involved🤨
I am Georgian, From my childhood have heard some stories of how doctors stole children and sold them, it's one of the hardest stories I have heard. Thanks to Tamuna for everything she is a hero for children mothers and families. Hope one day every family find their children and also a child can get legal info on where is she/he from.
Why would doctors to that and who were the buyers? How could such a situation even arise without anybody trying to stop it?
@@TeaCup1940 Who knows , most of them for money I think 🥹
Of course becaus eof money
@@TeaCup1940Money is your answer. The doctors stole the babies, sold them to families who wanted children but could not conceive, and part of the money went up and help to cover the crime. It was organized crime network. That is why it's called systemic corruption. That is why the authorities are not willing to dig in those cases even now. The discoveries might shake the society up to the core. Many people who were respected will face jail time. And some of them still hold government positions, power and influence.
What if everyone in Georgia took Ancestry DNA teats? Then relationships would start to connect them.
It’s 2AM and here i am crying so hard. I’m Georgian and i have been looking into these cases for the past 2 years and every time i come across them my heart breaks all over again. Yes, i’m really sorry for the families deeply affected by this, however i’m also heartbroken that these things happened in my country. It’s really shameful what they did, they must be held accountable for ruining thousands of lives, breaking mothers, children, families. I wish all the happiness to the victims affected by this monstrosity.
Send you my hugs! We have to appreciate that we live in this time, where people can find information easily. In Ukraine so many kids were adopted during the second world war. When parents came back from war to get them back, the orphanage declared them dead. I know it's different stories with different circumstances. But nowadays they can find their roots. ❤
@@roxanabanderas6313 It doesn’t matter if stories are different, what matters is that this kind of people exist within this mankind and it’s scary. If things like this happened in the past, i’m sure it’s still going on. It’s beyond my understanding how people can be this cruel. Sending you hugs as well, may all affected find their families.
@@SubliminalsareworkingIt is all due to the love of money, which is the root of all evil.
This is an extreme hypocrisy for such a religious country as Georgia. Says a lot about religion and traditional values.
@@grigory_m These evil people have neither true Christianity or traditional values. What a silly statement you made if you really think about it. Christianity teaches love, kindness, forgiveness, escape from God's wrath on sin. This leads to strong families of responsibility and good governments who look after their people. Traditional Values are not to steal children or abuse children. Do you hear yourself? Traditional Values are to be a responsible father in the home, a loving mother in the home, children raised by mother and father. What Georgia did is none of that. They are the opposite of Christianity and traditional values in these actions - pure Satanic evil that has, as usual, hurt innocent people. They will be judged by God if there is no repentance and salvation.
I understand the blonde twins anger…….but I hope she directs in the right place, and not at the poor mother her grieved her death years ago 😢😢😢
Just a child 💔🙌💫
How can she be expected to trust anyone, or take anyone's word for anything, even the woman who gave birth to her, after what she has been through?
I’m guessing that she is healing. Time will heal. She sees that we the people of the world really love her and truly care.
right, she was being so mean rolling her eyes, etc....
@@tatum635True...She could've been hurt a lot throughout the yrs. though...The girls had different upbringings as well.They look identical but they're still different idividuals.Still feel happy for the mother..The darker girl seemed to understand their mothers situation slightly better..Don't know when this was made,but I pray they'll all heal 🙏🏼 💞
Denmark banned all adoptions from other countries and it was about time. Will open again when they have better control about the situation
More likely that the Danish Govt wants its citizens to be only white Danes! You cannot adopt from the Western countries also? The Orphanages of other countries ? This Law is nonsensical ! There are many ways to corroborate the documents and check the integrity of the adoption agencies! Sounds like an excuse rather than a real reason!
Denmark should also check when its citizens bring babies from abroad ask for all documents and examine everything in detail. This is how Denmark will ensure that its citizens cannot bring illegal children into the country. You can't expect that in underdeveloped countries everything will be done according to standard.
That’s why they have stopped it because it’s the people where the babies come from that are corrupt. It doesn’t help to check the papers if they are forged. Educating women to not accept when they are told their babies died could be a start. Am sure the danish government is going to work on ensuring things are done correctly, otherwise no adoption to Denmark
@@enta2You're so right. Funny hiw they care so much about their own babies still allow their citizens to adopt from abroad. Unfortunaly the problem is that this is very common in adoption. It has always been a business and stealing babies to sell them happens everywhere. It has never been well regulated. It's like it's not their goal. It's not like they did not have time to do so. In my opinion each country should really restrict adoption from abroad to prevent international stolen babies and trafficking. It can still happens within the same country but at least thr government has more control about it...and overtime family could have a chance to find each other again. And for those feeling bad about babies in poor countries... well donations exist for a reason. The country that has the most adoptions is Haiti and there are many stories there about stolen babies but still parents go there to adopt because it's easier. Well maybe they should wonder why that is... Not long ago it was S.Korea also because it was super easy and they also had many cases of stolen babies. People see adoption as a beautiful thing without questioning it but unfortunately when you investigate a little it's problematic on so many levels. Unless the parents are alive and you can meet them to make sure they agree to the adoption...you'll never know.
@@HereDiianas Thank you for saying that! In the past, adoption was viewed as something bad and that wasn't correct, but now people do the opposite, as if adoption was something sacred and the adoptive parents could never do anything bad. We have to find the middle. Children are people too and they also have rights. It seems to me that only adults have the rights. If a citizen of a rich country saves one child from a poor country, he provokes that the evil people in this poor country will give birth to several children specifically to be sold and not all children can be adopted. These children are left without parents and are abused, forced to be beggars, etc.
The sisters are so beautiful. Its so amazing to see how they talk to each other like they have never missed a day ❤❤ love from the U.S.
Knowing that one is adopted is hard enough, but stolen and sold? How terrible! Why are some people so cruel as to do this to other people, especially children. Where is their humanity? Peace to all
Потому что они очень жадные, им наплевать на человеческое страдание, главное обогатиться...
What's weird to me is that I can imagine many people (poor women) would be glad to give up their chilren for a better life, if they got pregnant (and didn't get granted an abortion) and couldn't care for the child. Why steal them?
@Widdekuu91 I can't imagine any woman being glad to give up her child, even though some women do give up their children for adoption due to circumstances in their lives.
@@fantuabadir8151 Well I was thinking of oldfashioned situations in which a woman got pregnant (either r@pe or the husband left) and she would have been seen as a slut if she had a child on her own, so she hád to get rid of the kid in order to get married again. Or a homeless woman, or a poor woman etc. Women with children that had birthdefects, women that were on alcohol/drugs and so on.
@@fantuabadir8151 That's basically what the anti-abortion freaks propose to women who get pregnant in spite of precautions and don't want a child: to give the child up for adoption. As though there aren't already orphanages and foster care systems full to the brim as is!
It is Tamuna Museridzes credit to solve these mysteries that changed the fate of people, everyone deserves the truth.
That suitcase story is haunting and should be a film. How did we not know about this
Something similar was also happening in Greece about 57 years ago. Hospital staff attempted to fool my mother about me after I was born, but she didn’t fall for it
Really.. what did they tell her?
attempted abortion, these kids were never killed.
I suppose that she was born dead.
how did she get you back?
I came here to say this. My mum knew one woman who was told one of the children she had given birth to had died. Years later she sees him on TV on a foreign show and recognises him as her son
I was also a victim of child theft as a baby - in Ukraine - I guess this was happening in many post soviet republics - unbelievable
How do you know that? That you were stolen?
I found out that I was no my mothers biological child at the age of 30... my mother denied it at first but then after multiple people in my home town confirmed she told me the truth ... I laso have don eextensive DNA research for the past 12 years trying to find my biological mother@@irynaomel7920
It happens in poor countries. It has nothing to do with Soviets, but with corruption and criminal governments. South America for example..
Surely your mother who brought you up is a criminal. She must have paid for you
@@myviewkristinamclaughlin5157 not only in poor countries. It also happened in Spain
At 24:40 she said something profound!!! "They need to know that their mother did not sell them. They are not children of a bad mother.....they are children of a normal mother. Being apart of, connected to ***and affiliated with normal, is rare.
Some people are disgustingly shameless. How on earth and in what kind of state of mind you steal someone's baby and raise them like yours? I really feel so sad to all the babies who has to go through this inhuman thing. As they say "Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth”.
Generally when this happens around the world the adoptive family believe they are adopting orphans or children given up by their parents
@@araaraara12 Actually, this was happening too that, kids would get abandoned. There were cases that mother gave birth and left the baby at the hospital and asked the doctors to find families for them. This was happening when biological parents were extremely poor. You can ask why they didn't leave them in orphanages but the thing is in Georgia, in the regions there aren't many orphanages, travel to there would be problematic and orphanages in Georgia were in difficult situation too. They didn't have enough money to take care of children normally. Parents knew about this situation so only better way was to find adoptive parents illegally. Also here we have very bad law which makes the process extremely difficult for people willing to adopt legally, adoptive parents are put in the list and waiting time to adopt a child can be ten years or something. So when children were willingly abandoned in the hospitals, adoptive parents would make a birth certificate and take baby from the hospital. Of coarse finding real parents is very difficult in these cases, as real parents names are not mentioned in documents.
Those "adoptive parents" exchanged money for a baby. People that do that don't deserve the benefit of the doubt b/c they didn't care if what they were being told was the truth. There wouldn't be a market for it it wasn't for them.@@araaraara12
@@RosaMartinez-cc2nb that's just the rule isn't. You can't adopt if you can't even afford adoption fee. Without these these adoptees orphan and unwanted babies would never know what familial love felt like. Don't shit the entire community just because a fraction of them are not what you expect them to be
The subject of this video is not about the an entire adoption community, orphans, or even unwanted babies but on stolen babies.@@jacqqulen9106
I'm Georgian, I had no idea about this. In reality it shouldn't be too complicated to investigate if there was any will from the government.
It is always complicated when the government was involved, and the government's reputation is at stake. Even in a country like The Netherlands it has taken decades to get the government to admit that at least they did a very poor job in preventing or battling illicit practices in intercountry adoptions (where NL has always been on the receiving side). Before they'll admit that the government itself was (in)directly involved in executing illicit practices in the context of domestic adoptions, and that there must be justice and compensations for the victims, will still take a decade or two. It takes a lot of effort, persistence and perseverance from those addressing this kind of injustice, and it takes a lot of public outrage and pressure to move the government towards action...
It's a political hit which the government (politicians) never want to take, that's why they sometimes fight awful judicial cases relating to human rights abuses (even when it's almost clear they did).
except for two reasons: BIG names and BIG money.
Ah, to be so innocent as to think this.
It's unbelievable that this "trafficking" and selling of new borns happens in this day and age. How many children and parents are trying to find each other? This is so sad.... But happy for those that found their true families!.
It of course still happens, but it's not as widespread as this case in Georgia, the numbers are staggering.
In Australia now, if your baby dies you get the body to bury, so sadly you know the baby has passed away.
This was a powerful documentary. M'god. What humans do. I wish happiness, peace, and forgiveness for all involved. And for for responsibility taken by those involved in allowing it to happen
Not sure forgiveness is appropriate in the case of everyone involved. Some were simply paid to do these horrible things. The victims are free to forgive, but I fully support them if the don't forgive. Responsibility needs to be taken for surel
The line between legal and illegal is actually very thin in adoptions. Even if a mother relinquishes her child "voluntarily", usually a lot of pressure, persuasion and often also threat did happen. Adoption has become a huge industry, where, on both supplier and receiver side, there's a huge interest in sealing the deals. Which always comes at the cost of the child, as well as the child's biological mother.
Coercion is often a factor. More sinister nowadays is separation of biological mother and child by egg donors and also surrogacy - being normalised and acceptable. The impact on the child is never considered. 😢
A great documentary with emotional and psychological power. As an American I keep asking "who ran the hospital?" Those adorable twins were born only 20 years ago: who worked on the maternity ward then? who supervised them? Someone will be willing to talk. It says something about the state of civil society in Georgia that so many fundamental questions remain unanswered.
Exactly 20 years ago MY GOD!
As an American what exactly is shocking to you? The US has done this to Black & Indigenous families forever.
As an American this should be easy for you to imagine, you guys are pros at stealing babies
@@evelien135 what Americans are you talking about? I am an American. Do you think I stole an indigenous baby?
@@evelien135That's false. Come on, that is very rare.
This is horrific! I hope the BBC does an update on this. I wish all of these people the very best in finding their answers and their families.
The journalist, who started the movement deserves all the related awards, bravo and state should help and support her not contrary...
this made me cry, just witnessing how differently the twins dealt with this experience leads me to believe there are many out there who stop the search because they get exhausted meanwhile on the opposite end their family members are tirelessly searching. what a mess of a situation.
The same thing was happening in my home country Serbia, at about the same time. It is shocking what some people are able to come up with - and excecute. There is a film about this topic named Šavovi (Stitches), it follows the story of a Serbian woman who is convinced her baby was stolen.
Dunno why, but Georgia and the Balkan countries look similar.
@@ertitnoli9538communism, corruption, criminals, kind of similar vibes for at least past century
🙏you have been through so much .respect to all of you💪🫶✌️
Excellent documentary. Georgia is not the only country this has happened. Justice may not happen for mother's But if children file claims, government cannot ignore.
This hasn't only happened in Georgia. It happened in Greece and Morocco, and I am sure in many more countries... Taking a DNA test helps a lot in finding out who you are and finding lost relatives.
It happened in America, too. They separated them, not for money, but for social experiments. Sick
Ireland too
Serbia too!
It happens now in Ukraine, Putin stole 1 mln Ukrainian kids
It happened in The Netherlands, Chile and South Korea too.
The most direct and efficient way to find relatives is by establishing a DNA database without relying on government assistance, as they often only divert the public's attention.
it's really sad that one of the twins didn't really forgive her biological mother. It was most likely they were stolen from her, it was not their mother's fault. But then you would always have doubt that her mother sold her for money.
the girls are still young. Givven time; i am sure the anger will wane and make place for something else. I do understand the initial anger. It may be protect her for intense feelings.
You can see herself distancing from outside...her haircolour,...fear everywhere...she was more traumazided. . that makes her "feeling nothing" at first... she needs more time...
Selling children, alas, is all too common, though it is not known if it's the in case here, it is entirely possible.
So much trauma for mothers whose children were stolen. Even after finding them, they still suffer because they are the ones to be doibted while reql criminals.continue living their lives. Adoptive parents have as much guit, they knew they're taking baby not from orphanage but stolen from hospital. This crime goes beyond just taking baby placing in different family. They wrecked lives of everyona on both sides with psychological trauma that'll stay forever. Biological mothers are real victims here. Many adopted children don't know that they're adopted or have trauma of left child but lucky to be adopted. And it is the biological mother that will stay with pain forever , with tormented soul of lost baby either to death or suspicion they took her baby away and lied to her. And now grown children even found don't know to believe her or not. What can be worse for a mother?
There is no mention of their father...
The world is an evil man's playground.. This was heartbreaking to watch 💔
This is beyond heartbreaking. I just had my second son & I refused for the nurses to take them to the nursery after I just gave birth. It is so sad that this is a legitimate fear coz of such cases 😢
I’ve had three children, and I never let the nurses take them to the nursery EVER. living here in the United States it wasn’t a concern that I thought my child gets stolen. I just don’t trust that the nurses would look after them
I feel you, especially as a black woman. I’ll give birth to my babies at home with a doula
My mother wouldnt let them take me either. Dad sat up when she slept and slept midday when she was awake.
I always asked my husband to go with the nurses for Check ups and stuff Even though I am a nurse myself . First birth was a C section, I felt so helpless when they took the baby to the Check up because I couldnt even move. So glad my husband could spend so much time with us at the hospital. Never did I feel more vulnerable than during pregnancies, labor , birth and the breastfeeding phase. Unimaginable what they did to them!
The heartlessness of people to tell parents their babies died is beyond my imagination!
Indigenous mothers in the US and Canada had baby’s stolen and adopted to white family’s. I believe this happened sometime between the 50’s - 70’s. Tragic for the mothers and children, I couldn’t even imagine what they have gone through.
Look up Georgia Tann. No pun intended btw
In Canada we had the AIM program for a very long time which would take children of all ages away from indigenous folks and adopt them out to white families. This lasted until the 80s and they were advertised on TV and radio like rescue animals
This is known as the Sixties Scoop. About 20,000 children were taken by child welfare authorities from indigenous families and put up for adoption by white families. This was on top of a century or so of a compulsory residential schools system which was designed to inculcate European culture in children in place of indigenous.
Whites have had theirs stolen also.. 🤷♂️🤦♂️🤡
That happened to Indigenous women even just a few years ago. It's so disgusting to strip a child from the woman who gave birth to the child. It should never happen.
Tamuna is doing God’s work 🙌🏻
They need a DNA bank from women looking for their stolen babies to many adopted people and their sibilings so they can make it easier to find people and connect them. I wonder how 23andme is connecting long lost families. It always amazes me how technology can expose human indiginities while also revealing our deep capacity for empathy.
Yes, good ideas. But many of them have fake birth certificates, so they wouldn't have been registered as being adoopted.
You are brilliant, I was thinking the same thing.
He does, Georgian just has to use it massively.
I strangely feel close to these adoptees even if not from Georgia. I'm in the same position as an adoptee but I'm from Canada, black market babies were distributed from catholic convents (maritimes and QC from 1954-1995, govt closure) to private doctors everywhere and even smuggled to the USA. When i found out in 2015 after my parents passed within the same week both of them, it was a shock. Luckily, on DNA sites I have traced 2nd and even 1st cousins but some have been adopted too. I am getting closer to finding my dad (I have his name but no contact yet) at this time due to the 1st cousin on my DNA match. It's been in the news and even a TV series. Govt estimates 350,000 stolen and sold babies, those are the ones they are aware of, but the number can easily multiply as these private adoptions are not legal nor registered. More, like me are coming out due to DNA testing and confirmation from death bed parent confession.
Whats the name of the tv series? i wanna watch it
Exactly the same thing has been happening in Serbia for many decades. I believe it is happening even as we speak.
During whole film i had goosebumps. So sad and traumatic. I hope tamuna and all others who are searching will find their families, parents, siblings and children. Thank you for this film and raising awareness of this issue ❤
Nato is a wonderful woman, she and her family welcomed me to her home in France when I visited France with the mutual friend of ours years ago. I am sorry to hear about this heartbreaking story. I wish Nato and Tamuna all the best on their journey.
Whoever was involved believed they could get away with it and the victims would never be able to do anything about it.
...and along came DNA testing. If only those perpetrators were still alive!!
And they were correct.
I gave birth to my son in Russia in 2021, he was wrapped in the exact same red and white blanket. That’s horrifying when I think about these poor stolen babies
I'm truly heartbroken for the families and poor children. The adoptive parents should have been more curious where the babies were coming from. If not guilty, they were complicit. What a cruel world we live in! A day of reckoning is coming.
Exactly the same thing was happening in former Yugoslavia, and is still happening in Serbia. There are some organizations which are trying to find missing children and/or parents. They are struggling and facing with many problems. One of them is Ana Pejic, who is looking for her own child and helping others as well.
IThank you for bringing this case and the voices of all of these people to the world.
Such a great lady! Thank you, BBC for drawing attention to this cause
Such a heartbreaking story. The documentary is truly powerful.
One day we’ll make a documentary like this about the children stolen from Ukraine right now.
or children stolen from Gaza!
Children from Hawaii
Hard to see how no one is found responsible. It shouldn’t be that difficult to find out ppl who were a part of that.
It's not what you know. It's what you can prove. A lot of the adoptees can prove they were stolen, but not by whom.
Thank you yet again, World Service.
This stories are worthy books and films, incredible, heartbreaking!
They had frozen babies to calm parents down🤦🏻♀️
😢
That was crazy...so evil
Pitiful frozen babies!Used as a nefarious way to their alibis to the grieving family without any remorse on their part(those responsible for this bad idea).
😢 Thank you, dear Tamuna for all you are doing to help those mothers and their children 💐🕊️.
Hpw this ppor kids going to forgive their adoptive parents? Not only it's shocking that they have biological parents that never gave them away and they were stolen from them, but their adoptive parents are also participants in this trafficing. It's like living all your life with your kidnapper. I can't imagine wht they go through. I wish them all find peace and their biological family. I can only imagine how much their biological parents suffered, that pain never goes away from the heart of the mother.
Tamuna Museridze is the best person and a professional journalist
შოკის ამბავი მთელი საქართველოსთვის 😢 მადლობა თამუნა მუსერიდეს და მის გუნდს 🙏 იმედი გვაქვს ბევრი გახსნილ საქმეებს ვიხილავთ . მინდა მივმართო ყველას, გაიკეთეთ დეენების ტესტი რატა დავეხმაროთ ერთ მანეთს 🙏
Which language is this
@@balanc741 Georgian language
Tamuna, you have helped so many. Your day of finding your family is coming. I believe it will come.
Despite i knew the story about those girls, it was very emotional and just can’t stop crying.. I hope all families will find justice one day and will reunited with their loved ones..
Remember some mothers were coerced to sell them. Additionally, some were so impoverished that taking some money meant their child had an opportunity to live a better life. There isn’t a day those mothers don’t think about their choice.
I have recently found out that my twin brothers are alive and that they were separated after birth. The hospital told my mom that they died but she never seen the dead bodies. My mom never recovered from what happened to her. They made her believe this lie and our whole family has been robbed from sharing moments together. This happened in Czechoslovakia in 1970’s. And yes, it s true that men were not allowed in maternity hospitals, my mom was only able to see my dad through the hospital window. My brothers may have been taken and adopted to countries outside Czechoslovakia. I’m still looking for them, please keep me and my family in your prayers to find them. 🙏❤️
This is insane. They got away with this for 50 years. Crazy
Really appreciate Tamuna's work and all she've done. Best wishes to the twins!
Same situations and same horrific things are still happening in the Balkan region. Baby and human trafficking was especially rampant in the 90s.
Thank you for your support and attention about this subject.🙌🏼
I can’t imagine being told my child died and not being able to hold my child in my arms and bury it myself. I’d have asked too many questions and I don’t think a prefrozen baby would have done the trick. Let me also add that we don’t allow our babies to leave the room after delivery. There’s nothing the staff needs to do in another room. When we tell the nurses this in our minds the worst we fear is our baby being given medicine we don’t agree to or mistreated but never kidnapped and sold. What a nightmare ! I encourage all mothers to keep their babies in their maternity room and ask questions when they try to remove the baby. Shame on Georgian government for this atrocity
Doctors and nurses word meant law here at that time. And they were very skilled in mental and emotional manipulation. They mostly either gave the grieving parents nailed up coffins, telling them that their child had already started rotting and it'd be horrible to see the decaying infant. Or they told them that the law required the stillborn or dead infants to be burried in the cenmentry in the yeard of the hospital. Obviously no such cementries existed in the hospitals. Many women din't even have the proof that they gave birth, no such documments exist in the archives. And we are talking about the time when documentation only existed on paper. Many doctors and nurses burnt these papers, many hospitals have been destroyed and documents were also lost.
Such events have also happened in the former Yugoslavia! The children of Albanians were not given to their mothers after birth, because they "died" according to the Doctor and the dead babies did not appear😔. Albanian women were forced to give birth at home because their children were stolen in hospitals.
I would suggest that any parent who remembers the name of the doctor, the nurse, the caretaker at any of the hospitals, and slowly comply a list of these names..... Then the legal system could bring a civic suit against these people who would be forced to provide more information.....
Tamuna is absolutely amazing and real hero She deserves it all 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻💚
This is so heartbreaking and evil, those poor parents and kids 😪💔
Oh what a chilling history, unimaginable! God bless, tamuna, yes you will find your answers, and family. So Tragic, xxx from zambia
I am so happy for Amy and Ana who found their mother . I hope and pray that others also will find their children and parents!
My mum had my sister taken from her by the hospital, this was in the UK in the 1960s. This happens everywhere, its a disgrace.
My cousin had a twin, he was born in Georgia. My aunt believes he is alive, I thought it is conspiracy but looks like it is true.
One of the things that I see as horrible is that these mothers were lied to and told their children died!! That had to be such a painful thing to find out that the child that you had thought was dead was actually alive and had been sold to another family!! I hope that the country actually investigates this and gets some answers for these mothers and the children. A very large wound has been created and the government needs to help in the healing by at least doing some investigation and getting some answers.
I'm from Georgia and I can assure you that Government will not investigate these cases, because some criminals that were involved in child trafficking are still in Government. I hope after this documentary this lawsuit will move to European court and Europe will push Georgian Government to start investigation.
Heart touching documentary..blood sample of both mother and stolen kids..which help to find family easily..
you will find them Tamuna! BRAVO for your work! Good luck!
the amount of pain and suffering caused by this is pure evil, let alone how many children were probably sold into torture.
These days that is exactly the case. Torture and sacrifice
In my country are the same. Many ladies tray to find the children. My country doesn’t want to support them. Many women are trying to find their children. My country tries to cover its tracks. The ladies fight corruption, crime, threats and mourn their missing children.
Such beautiful girls ❤ With great love from Ukraine ❤❤❤
I literally am lost for words, i recall reading about this a while back on BBC News but damn, my heart truly breaks after watching & realising the extent this happened in Georgia, and judging from the comments in many other countries too, even as late into the early 00's Thank goodness Tamuna took a chance on creating this group and i send nothing but love & prayers to the individuals & the families whose lives have been impacted by this atrocity the government are covering up. Xx
Anyone questioning should be able to have a DNA test and have the results in the group so that any matches could be linked up immediately. Eventually enough evidence would be linked and mothers or fathers would be able to give proper birth dates and places for the children born then locations and known employees at these locations could be found. Certainly administrators knew there were sales of babies because no hospital had cemeteries. Those numbers of supposed deaths would indicate foul play. Any father or mother that had babies disappear should be able to have their DNA added to the bank, as well as aunts or uncles because the more you add to the resource the quicker answers would be found.
Im also a twin, never knew a woman can separate us 😊 If u ever see this twin bro come say hello to the guy u was in the same womb for 9 months 😃 Love u bro ❤
Man, it’s horrible. My daughter was born last year, and these things kept popping in my mind. We went to a place where i was present the whole time, and after she was born, i never took my eyes off her for a second until we left
Lots of sadness in this story, but much courage, too. Tamuna is amazing. Smart and beautiful. Wish all involved much happiness in their journeys.
How can you know if your adoption process was legal? My husband and I adopted 2 wonderful children from Taiwan. We had to jump through so many legal hoops. So much governmental paperwork. We met each child's birth mother when we traveled to pick them up. Our son was given up by his bm to a Catholic orphanage. My daughter was placed in the foster care system due to neglect. Now I'm worried that their bms may have been tricked into giving up their children. I don’t know what to do. My kids know that they have our support if they ever wanted to get in contact with their bio families but they choose not to at this time. I just wish there were a way for me to know that I didn't steal my kids. That would absolutely break me.
Sadly, sometimes you just don't know, just have to trust you did everything right and if someone failed it's not your fault.
Oh god!
The best thing to do is not adopt children from other countries unless you you can meet their whole family and can ask them the reason why the giving up the children for adoption.