While the Standesamt in Bremen refused to give Black German children their complete birth certificates, the Jugendamt refused to acknowledge young migrants' African or Afghan birth certificates. While the babies did not exist fully on paper, the young migrants were given a new birth date and age. As both birth certificates and age are a key to humane living conditions and opportunities under current law, the babies' mothers and young migrants started protesting. The mothers demanded birth certificates for their children, and the young migrants fought for their age, residency, education and good housing in Bremen. Both protests were to some degree successful. Some young migrants were allowed to stay in Bremen, and the Higher Administrative Court (Oberverwaltungsgericht) Bremen ruled that the blanket general suspicion against Ghanaian and Nigerian mothers is unlawful.

On this website, we present the unaltered stories and visions from refugees. We collected and analyzed them in our collaborative work as refugee activists and citizen anthropologists. Our goal is to challenge age determinations and the denial of birth certificates. We believe that everybody should be treated equally and with respect. Everybody should have the same opportunities to live freely in society, no matter if Black or white, migrant or long term resident, child or adult. There should be no extra law that treats migrants and Black citizens as less human than white citizens. The eighteenth birthday should not be a catastrophe for a migrant, and a Black German child and their mother should receive the same treatment as any other German child and mother. Enough of white supremacy! Every human life is precious. No one can be born twice!