Since 2022, Georgia has emerged as a pivotal node in the global surrogacy market, experiencing an unprecedented surge in activity that has positioned the country as a hub for reproductive services. This boom has been primarily fueled by the extensive recruitment of women from Central Asia, facilitated through the innovative use of social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. These digital channels have become vital conduits for clinics and agencies, connecting with potential surrogates in countries where economic challenges incentivize participation in surrogacy programs abroad. As a result, Georgia’s surrogacy industry now operates at a scale and complexity that demand scholarly attention and regulatory scrutiny.
At the core of this burgeoning market are intermediaries—agents, clinic coordinators, and often former surrogates—who act as both gatekeepers and controllers in the reproductive labor process. Unlike the simplistic view of surrogacy as a straightforward contract between intended parents and surrogates, these intermediaries embed themselves within legal frameworks, clinical protocols, and social environments, creating a complex infrastructure that governs the reproductive journey. Their roles extend beyond operational facilitation, manifesting in emotional regulation and social oversight that deeply influences the experiences of migrant surrogate women.
New research from the University of Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) offers unprecedented insight into these intricate dynamics. Conducted between 2023 and 2024 through ethnographic fieldwork in Kazakhstan and Georgia, this study uncovers how emotional control is systematically exercised by intermediaries and how it sustains the Georgian surrogacy market. By blending anthropological inquiry with migration studies, the research sheds light on the nuanced mechanisms that render the emotional and bodily labor of surrogacy as both a commodity and a site of control.
One of the most striking findings reveals that recruitment largely occurs via social media platforms, where visual narratives and personal testimonies serve as powerful tools for drawing women into surrogacy arrangements. Clinics, agencies, and surrogate recruiters leverage the widespread reach and immediacy of Instagram and TikTok, crafting messages that appeal to economic necessity and the promise of financial empowerment. This digital recruitment strategy surpasses traditional recruitment methods, creating a transnational marketplace interconnected by virtual networks and mediated communication.
Additionally, the research highlights a cyclical pattern wherein former surrogates transition into recruiters themselves, thus perpetuating the cycle of recruitment and labor. Nearly 20% of surrogates become agents, using their lived experience to vouch for the arrangements and to encourage new participants to enter the system. This incentivization complicates traditional labor relations, intertwining peer support with surveillance and compliance enforcement. It also raises critical questions about agency and exploitation within these reproductive networks.
The study further uncovers a pervasive culture of surveillance within the surrogate cohorts. Women are typically required to remain in Georgia throughout their pregnancies, residing in communal apartments provided or controlled by clinics. Within these settings, intermediaries foster an environment where surrogates are encouraged to monitor each other’s adherence to clinic rules—often incentivized financially to report deviations. This peer surveillance creates social tension and mistrust, fracturing potential solidarity among women undergoing similar reproductive and migratory experiences.
Financial control mechanisms are also integral to the system’s governance. Payments to surrogates are structured in stages contingent upon their compliance with medical and legal requirements, effectively controlling their mobility and autonomy. By linking compensation to adherence, clinics and intermediaries reinforce a hierarchical structure that disciplines surrogates’ behaviors and limits their freedom during the surrogacy process. This financial tethering reflects broader patterns of labor exploitation within globalized reproductive markets.
The legal and ethical complexities of Georgian surrogacy regulation exacerbate these control dynamics. Loopholes and gaps in regulatory oversight allow intermediaries considerable latitude to operate within ambiguous zones of practice. This flexible legal environment, coupled with limited state monitoring, creates conditions ripe for ethical ambiguities and potential abuses. The transnational nature of surrogacy thus unfolds within a regulatory vacuum, raising urgent concerns about the protections afforded to migrant surrogate workers.
Voices from within the surrogacy system reveal the human dimension of these systemic controls. Women like Sholpan, a surrogate and agent, underscore the economic imperatives driving participation, juxtaposed with the challenging conditions imposed by clinics. Her narrative illustrates how reproductive labor is simultaneously a source of income and a site of emotional and physical exploitation, emblematic of the dual nature of surrogacy as a “gold mine” that profits multiple stakeholders, not just surrogates themselves.
Moreover, testimonies such as those from Aliya, who recounted near-fatal medical complications and dehumanizing treatment, and Lisa, a clinic manager emphasizing the delicate task of managing surrogates’ expectations, expose the tension between clinical authority and surrogate well-being. These accounts complicate dominant narratives of surrogacy as an altruistic or purely transactional endeavor, revealing embedded power asymmetries and emotional labor demands that extend beyond medical procedures.
The research conducted by Dr. Polina Vlasenko situates these practices within broader migratory and reproductive mobilities, examining how social and medical transformations in Central Asia impact the trajectories of women engaged in surrogacy abroad. By foregrounding emotional control mechanisms, her work challenges conventional conceptualizations of reproductive labor as merely contractual, illuminating the affective infrastructures that sustain and discipline surrogacy markets.
Georgia’s rise as a transnational surrogacy hub exemplifies the complexities inherent in global reproductive labor markets, where economic globalization intersects with bodily autonomy, migration, and regulatory insufficiency. The ethical and legal challenges unearthed by this study underscore the necessity for comprehensive policies that protect surrogate workers’ rights and health, especially migrant women operating within under-regulated systems. The interplay of care and control, central to Georgia’s surrogacy industry, demands critical attention from policymakers, academics, and human rights advocates alike.
As international demand for reproductive services continues to escalate amidst shrinking local labor pools, the Georgian case elucidates the entanglements of global reproductive economies. It highlights how technological mediation, emotional governance, and regulatory gaps converge to shape the lived realities of surrogate women, framing surrogacy not merely as a biomedical practice but as a deeply socio-political phenomenon woven into global migration patterns and economic disparities.
This body of work, grounded in robust ethnographic methods and interdisciplinary frameworks, offers a vital contribution to understanding reproductive labor in the 21st century. It calls for heightened ethical reflection and regulatory innovation to ensure that the burgeoning global surrogacy market does not perpetuate exploitation under the guise of opportunity, but instead fosters dignified, equitable reproductive partnerships.
Subject of Research: Transnational Surrogacy, Migrant Surrogate Workers, Emotional and Financial Control in Georgia’s Surrogacy Industry
Article Title: Mediating Reproductive Labor: Affective Migration Infrastructures and Central Asian Surrogates in Georgia
News Publication Date: 2026
Web References:
- Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS): https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/
- Full Study: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17450101.2026.2672939#abstract
References: Vlasenko, P. (2026). Mediating reproductive labor: affective migration infrastructures and Central Asian surrogates in Georgia. Mobilities, DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2026.2672939
Keywords: transnational surrogacy, reproductive labor, migrant surrogates, emotional control, labor exploitation, Georgian surrogacy market, social media recruitment, intermediaries, reproductive justice, migration, global reproductive economies
