Spatial-Territorial Bordering

One of the locations where these struggles over birth registration play out in everyday life is a kindergarten in the district of Gali in Georgia, which is located within the UN-monitored buffer zone. In 2016, Georgia reported to the CRC that students in Gali district holding Georgian birth certificates were being treated as “foreigners” in occupied Abkhazia. The kindergarteners’ parents were told to obtain so-called “Abkhazian birth certificates”—which cost 20-30 thousand rubles (US $271-$406)— to continue their schooling or risk expulsion. In the interim, parents were forced to translate the Georgian birth certificates and have them certified by a notary.

Not only do the translated and notarized Georgian birth certificates fail to give the child in question a clear status within Abkhazia, but holding such certificates may pose a security risk for the parents. The government of Georgia says that the children’s Georgian birth certificates are transferred to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and the persons in question remain subject to close scrutiny based on the ID codes of the parents which are listed on the certificates.

Mothers living in or near the UN-monitored buffer zone make difficult choices about where to give birth, how to document it, and how best to navigate the borders which have crossed their family’s lives. Birthing children in the buffer zone, and then risking a border crossing to have them registered and recognized as Georgian, can be read as an act of resistance of Georgian women against the Russian occupation.