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Georgia's stolen children: Twins sold at birth reunited by TikTok video (www.bbc.com)

submitted 8 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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Amy and Ano are identical twins, but just after they were born they were taken from their mother and sold to separate families. Years later, they discovered each other by chance thanks to a TV talent show and a TikTok video. As they delved into their past, they realised they were among thousands of babies in Georgia stolen from hospitals and sold, some as recently as 2005. Now they want answers.

Amy is pacing up and down in a hotel room in Leipzig. "I'm scared, really scared," she says, fidgeting nervously. "I haven't slept all week. This is my chance to finally get some answers about what happened to us."

Her twin sister, Ano, sits in an armchair, watching TikTok videos on her phone. "This is the woman that could have sold us," she says, rolling her eyes.

Ano admits she is nervous too, but only because she doesn't know how she will react and if she will be able to control her anger.

It's the end of a long journey. They have travelled from Georgia to Germany, in the hope of finding the missing piece of the puzzle. They are finally meeting their birth mother.

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[-] pandapoo@sh.itjust.works 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

That is a genuinely heart wrenching read. I look forward to more reporting, but this is type of story where digging too deep may result in a hit and run "accident", or straight up car bombing.

They don't go into too many details, but it sounds like hospital staff were paid to abduct the infants and tell parents their newborns died.

Given how widespread it was, I assume it was a system of brokers who paid off the staff, took the infants, and then acted as go-betweens for the agencies selling the babies for adoption.

That's entirely speculation on my part. I hope they can dig deeper into this and bring some level accountability for the sake of those families.

[-] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 13 points 8 months ago

Wow. Organized crime is so deep in the former Soviet culture.

[-] fidodo@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

I was worried this was going to be a human trafficking story. It was an illegal adoption scheme cooked up by crooked hospital staff so not as sad as I was worried it would be.

[-] pandapoo@sh.itjust.works 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

There's absolutely organized crime involved. The hospital staff weren't posting the babies on eBay. There was most likely a network of abductors, brokers, agencies, etc.

All done for profit, so yeah, it's the definition of human trafficking.

[-] Pretzilla@lemmy.world 7 points 8 months ago

Yea the staff was in on it too.

Surmising they knocked the moms out with anesthesia, delivered and abducted the infants. When the moms woke up they were told the babies died.

Adoption cost was half a year's salary, so there was a lot of money involved.

[-] fidodo@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

From this specific incident I wasnt sure if they were stolen from their original mother or given up. If it's the latter then it's more like a sketchy adoption where the doctors are overcharging and pocketing the money. If it was an abduction then I missed it in the article and yeah, that would totally be human trafficking.

this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024

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