Georgian student Elene Deisadze was scrolling through TikTok in 2022 when she stumbled upon a profile that made her do a double-take. The girl in the video, Anna Panchulidze, looked exactly like her. Intrigued, Elene reached out to Anna, and the two quickly formed a connection.
As they got to know each other online, they discovered they had more in common than just their looks. Both girls were adopted. This revelation led them to take a DNA test, which confirmed that they were not just lookalikes but identical twins.
“I had a happy childhood, but now my entire past felt like a deception,” Anna told AFP. The discovery was both shocking and bittersweet for the twins. They had found each other, but their story was part of a much darker narrative.
The DNA test was arranged with the help of Georgian journalist Tamuna Museridze, who has been investigating a widespread kidnapping scheme in Georgia. This scheme, which operated from 1950 to 2006, involved organized criminals, doctors, and government officials. They would tell parents that their newborns had died and then sell the babies to adoptive families, who were often unaware of the illegal nature of the adoption.
Museridze first uncovered this scheme in 2016 when she found two birth certificates with different dates while clearing out her mother’s house. Her investigation revealed that more than 100,000 children had been stolen from hospitals in Georgia.
Anna’s adoptive mother, Patmani Parkosadze, confirmed that she had paid thousands of dollars to adopt Anna in 2005. “I had no clue. At that time, you had to wait ages to adopt somebody. My husband and I were personally waiting for six years before we got Anna,” Parkosadze told ABC.
Elene’s adoptive mother, Lia Korkotadze, also had no idea that her baby girl had been kidnapped. “Adopting from an orphanage seemed virtually impossible due to incredibly long waiting lists,” she told AFP. She was overjoyed when she heard about a six-month-old baby available for adoption from a local hospital for a fee. “They brought Elene right to my house,” Korkotadze said, never suspecting anything illegal.
Despite the shocking revelation, Anna and Elene are grateful for the families that raised them. However, they still hope to find their biological parents. “Maybe they don’t even know we exist because when children were adopted sometimes their biological parents were lied to, [told] your child is dead. Maybe our parents think we are dead, we are not even alive. It would be so great to find them and tell them the truth,” Elene told ABC.
To help other families find each other, Museridze started a Facebook group dedicated to reuniting babies stolen from their parents. The group currently has around 250,000 members and has reunited around 700 families. Museridze has also teamed up with human rights lawyer Lia Mukhashavria to further investigate the national, decades-long scam.
“It was pretty clear it was a well-structured illegal business in this country,” Museridze insisted. The scheme involved a network of maternity hospitals, nurseries, and adoption agencies that colluded to take children from their parents, falsify birth records, and place them with new families in exchange for cash.
Elene and Anna, now 19, began unraveling their hidden past two years ago. “We became friends without suspecting we might be sisters, but both of us felt there was some special bond between us,” Elene, a psychology student, told AFP.
Last summer, both of their parents independently told the girls they had been adopted. It was then that the pair decided to take the genetic test that would reveal they were identical twins. “I struggled to process the information, to accept the new reality—the people who had raised me for 18 years are not my parents,” said Anna. “But I feel no anger whatsoever, only immense gratitude to the people who raised me, and joy at finding my flesh and blood,” she added.
The tale of Anna and Elene mirrors that of another set of twin sisters, Anna Sartania and Tako Khvitia. They were separated at birth and sold to different parents, managing to reunite years later after finding each other on social media.
More than 800 families have been reunited thanks to Museridze’s Facebook group. Successive Georgian governments have made multiple attempts to investigate the scheme and have made a handful of arrests over the last 20 years. Interior ministry spokesman, Tato Kuchava, told AFP that an “investigation is underway” into Museridze’s revelations but declined to provide further details.
Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze said last week in parliament that Tbilisi is among the world leaders in combating trafficking. However, Museridze says the state’s response has been lacking. “The government did nothing tangible to help our efforts,” she said.
The story of Elene and Anna is a poignant reminder of the dark history of child trafficking in Georgia. While they are grateful to have found each other, their journey highlights the need for continued efforts to uncover the truth and reunite families torn apart by this heinous scheme.
Source: AFP, Daily Mail, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)
