Surrogacy Industry's Dark Side: Tales of Fear and Hardship in Georgia

For the women living in House 3, snippets of information gleaned from those in House 5 painted a disturbing picture. Though the residents of House 3 didn't know the exact location of House 5, they understood it was a large building situated on one of the hills surrounding Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. They heard stories of overcrowded rooms housing hundreds of pregnant women. Food shortages were also a major concern in House 5. The promised daily provisions of pork, rice, and vegetables were often insufficient, leading to fierce competition among the women for scarce resources.

Women from House 3 who encountered those from House 5 at the fertility clinic described them as looking tough and intimidating. They would sit in the waiting area with a guarded posture. Perhaps, the women of House 3 reasoned, such toughness was necessary for survival in House 5. They learned that unlike their communal system, the women in House 5 kept their cooking oil private, locked away in their own rooms. Furthermore, the women in House 3 heard that any misbehavior, rule-breaking, missed medication, defiance, or attempted escape could result in a woman being sold to the overseers of House 5, where conditions were rumored to be significantly worse.

Underlying all of this was the knowledge that any woman, in any of the five houses, who became unhappy – homesick for Thailand, missing her family thousands of miles away – faced a difficult situation.