“I don’t really know what is the difference. Ok, today I am 17. At 12 o'clock I am 18. What is the difference? This is what I don't understand. Today, I am 17 and in 2 hours or 3 hours I am 18. And from this 17, this moment, in 3 hours my life is completely different. This is what I cannot understand.”

A: “I will first start with the age and the effects that age determination has. For example, when you come here, to Bremen, when you are a minor and in the process in which you are not accepted as a minor, you are forced to accept that you are an adult. There are different effects it has on you. The first one is the accommodation. Mostly, if you are a minor, you are not accommodated in the Lager, in the big camps. You are taken into a very good system. And when you compare that to the adult system, you have a better accommodation — not crowded, you mostly have your own flat, you can cook for yourself. But when you are an adult, you are mostly taken to a big camp where you don't have the chance to cook for yourself, where you don't have the chance to have your own space. You know, you live in a big house, with...maybe four, five, seven people in one room. And you cannot cook. You have to eat from the canteens, you don't have the chance to eat the food you want. That is one part of it, the accommodation. And the other part is education. Like, when you are an adult, your chances of education are very limited. Like, you cannot go to a normal school, you cannot go to schools. I don't know exactly but there is an age. When you pass that age, you cannot go to normal schools. People with whom I came here together, who are accepted as minors, in the youth system, they go to school. You know, one or two years, they get their Abschluss and they have their Ausbildung. They are faster than people who are adults. Adults mostly go to Deutschkurs or you go to BIQ (This is also a really important educational project). But also this: you get B1 and you don't have school Abschluss...So, the inequality or the disparity, when you look at education, is very wide. When you are a minor, you get the chance to get an education but when you are an adult, you get very little chance of getting an education. There is one example, someone I know who was given 40 years — that means he was assessed to be 40 years in his age determination. When he tried to register as a minor, he was given 40 years. And he could not go to any school, he could not do anything, because the maximum age for BIQ is 27. If you are more than 27, you cannot go to that school.” Q: “He got 40, they told him he was 40?” A: “Yes. And that is the education part. But, you also look at other parts, you know in sports and other things. When you are an adult and you want to do sports, the chances are really limited. It is different from the system for minors! Really different! And when you are a minor, you know, you get Ausweis, you know, you can move freely, you can go to clubs, you know. Socially also, there is a big difference. When you are an adult and you are not in the system, you have big uncertainty in your life. Also in Bremen, if you are categorized as an adult, you have also the risk of being transferred outside of Bremen. And also when you are transferred, you go for asylum. When you go for asylum, this will take you also to other categories, whether you are qualified to get asylum or not, also the Dublin regulations and other stuff are coming to this. So it is very big and the opportunities are very vast and it is a big difference here.”

“So, what do people do when they do age estimations? They go to the machine where the machine looks at the bones and the teeth, Or they go to the Social. They are asked: ‘Where are you coming from, when did you go to school, why did you come?’ and so on. And the Social checks if somebody has wrinkles or something. They say it is for determining age. But in the end, what it comes down to is this: It is not about determining age. But it's determining where a person lives, how a person lives, if a person lives, survives, dies, hopes, shatters, and so on. It is weird that they come from bones and teeth and wrinkles and ‘when did you go to school?’ or whatever to life, ways of living and survival, and so on. This is important for me because I really always think: ‘Why are they talking about age? It is not about age.’ So I gathered all the stories that came to my mind from our research. T gave his passport to the Migrationsamt, and if he goes there to get his passport, he gets deported. M's age got rejected and was told: ‘Ah, by the way, you can also be deported to Italy at any moment’. H, who I interviewed just two weeks ago, also got his age rejected and like a few days later he sent me his deportation notice. He was told to go back to Lithuania because he came over Belarus. Then I was thinking about I. who has come from Ukraine and I am actually not sure if he would be deported back to Ukraine, I don't know because I am not sure if they are part of the Dublin system, but I mean he went away from there because his friends were killed there. Three friends were killed there, so, it's really dangerous there for Black people. And he got rejected here. And there is B, there is L, and there are many stories that we have. And another friend actually got deported and then worked on the farms in Italy, living homelessly in these weird kinds of plastic tents and farming food for Europeans. And I just thought about that today, I thought about this before but we were speaking in the interviews, it is a lot about food in the camps, you know. You don't get proper food, you don't get enough food. Food is such an issue and then if you get deported, you are making, farming for those Europeans who then deny you good food in the camps. I am thinking with Gift's analysis that she made before. I think her formulation that Birth certificates are like a key is very good. And I thought age determination is also something like that. I am not sure what it is: whether it is a key or a door or a border or all of these, but something like that. Something that is really putting people from one place to the other.”

“If you are a Gambian and you come here as an adult, the next day you will find yourself in Halberstadt, and the next day maybe in Italy, and then they will forget about you.”

“The violence in Europe is often more hidden, I would say. Or often also unexpected. People who have survived, for example, the difficulties in Libya or the difficulties of going with the boat to Europe, often they have the belief or hope that they are safe. That is something that gives people strength. You can survive and live with a lot of things if you hope that things will get better. But when you come here to Europe and you experience that you do not have the rights you expect, [like] you do not have access to basic medical care, you experience violence in refugee camps, maybe from other refugees but also often from people who are doing the security work, then this is something that is often very demoralising. Often, some say that it robs the hope that things will be safe and better. That means you don't have the point anymore to say: ‘At least I am here, I am safe,’ when you realize that this is not true.”

“...I have a — also, they gave me a Duldung. After these two and half years they give me a Duldung. Also they have like a Red Cross mark on it which also shows a lot of bullshit, so, yeah, also I have to cope with it. And the Duldung contains the age. They said I was born in 1995 — twelve, thirty first, ninety five. And then they gave me this Duldung and I'm like: ‘Hey, look, this is not my age. This is the age that, you know, you people gave me.’ She said: ‘No,’ and that I shouldn't say ‘the people’ because it is not her job — she is not like working at that, she said. I said ‘But you are, you are also like, you are the one state, you are working together, this is the Bremen social system. Yeah, so you have to write the age I gave, my real age on it.’ So, this was very crazy. You have to work with two different documents, with two birth dates. So, this is crazy.” Q: “So, on this one Duldung document, there is two dates of birth on it?” A: “Yeah, two dates of birth on it. My real one and the fixed one they gave me.” Q: “That's really crazy. Yeah, did that give you any problem?” A: “Yeah, it is really funny. When I went to any office, any bureaus for appointments, they get confused and ask me questions: ‘Why this?’ But normally they took the birth date they gave me because that's their system. It started when I have the document, the Duldung.”

“With this situation, there is a sharp, a sharp cut on the 18th birthday. Regarding the question of Dublin procedures: so everybody who arrives here and gave fingerprints in another European country. Is he...will he be sent back to Italy or not? That's just regarding the appeal when you said you want to have asylum. Was that before or after the 18th birthday? Sharp cut. If you ask for asylum after your 18th birthday, you might have to go back to Italy. And because of that, there are these questions about under 18 or over 18. That means that deportations of minors are more or less impossible for Germany. And because of that, they argue on this point and this question of if somebody is over or under 18. On this question the whole chances for the person change. For our clients, it's a question for many of them it is a question of life. Will you be deported away from Europe or not? And even for this, for the minors, it is ‘hop or top’. It's often not the question of how big is the chance to win this case but it is always ‘Just try anything.’ But if the Ausländerbehörde and the authorities are sure that somebody is a minor they give them better chances than anyone else.”

“Okay, before going for an interview, I got this letter from the authorities regarding my Dublin deportation. So, the people working in Bundes called me saying: ‘You are the first guy who ever had this Dublin in Bundes here.’ I told them: ‘I do not know this Dublin.’ They told me that they will take me to an office and explain everything to me. One early morning they took me to an office, I found a lady there and she explained me everything like: ‘You are still in the system in Italy but you are here, you are a minor at this point, because Sozial does not decide whether you are a minor or not. So you'll be here, up to when they approve that you are a minor. When they approve that you are a minor, you will stay. But when they approve that you are an adult, they may send you back to Italy. So that was confusion yet again. So after my bone test, on the day I was picking my bone test in Social, the woman who was giving me the result told me that ‘You can be deported to Italy at the next point. I cannot exactly say the date when they'll send you back, but you can be sent back at the next point.’ So that was a mixed feeling for me at that point. So another challenge come — I have this Dublin, then, they reject my age. At that point, I do not know what to do. It was really a tough time. At that point, I was even telling my friends: ‘Before sending me back to Italy, they should send me back to my country, Gambia. That is better’. Because I know the life I was living in Italy. I was able to abandon that place and come here for a better living....so going back to my country is better than going to Italy, because it was crazy. I was having trauma at that time.”

Q: “If an alien from out of space came down to earth to understand how earthlings are living and it would come to Germany — you would tell them that as a migrant from the Gambia, coming to Germany, you only get options (life chances, living conditions) if they check your bones and come to the result that you are a minor?” A: “In that period, you don't think twice, because you have pressure, you have a lot of pressure. They will tell you that you have to go to the camp, some people will be transferred, some people will be kicked out, some people they are even living in a trap system, they tell you that you have to go to the bone test. For them, it is like a win-lose situation. You don't have an option. They don't give you an option. Maybe there is an option if you come here by migration, but the Sozialamt will tell you that you are a minor and let you stay here. They give you one option, that option you have to take.” Q: “One option to stay here?” A: “But you have to take it, you have to take the bone test. In that moment, you have to. For example, I went to court, and the court believed me that I am a minor, they understand. So I had hope that Sozial will take me. And then they tell me that they don't believe me and that I have to go to bone test again. What is going on? You have to go, there is no other option. It was like two options. You went to court, and they tell you that they believe you are a minor, but the big decision is taken by Sozial. And they tell you that if you want them to believe that you are a minor, you have to go to bone test.” Q: “Would it be different if adult migrants would be just able to go to school, stay here, get health treatment. If adults would just be treated like normal human beings? Would that change anything?” A: “When they reject you, they tell you that you can't stay here, because they only allow minors to stay here. So you cannot stay in Bremen, they only take minors. It is like that. They give you this information, that the only way to stay here is if you are a minor. But if you are an adult, you are not allowed. Even if they have some procedure that allows you to stay here, they will not give you that. Minors are staying here. If you are not a minor, they transfer you.” Q: “There is no option, as you say.”

Q: “What were the reasons you did not want to go on with the transfer?” A: “I don't wanna live at this — how can someone come into your country and he says he wanna live in your country. Like, I said, ‘I wanna live in Bremen, what is the problem with that?’ I wanna live in Bremen whether you take my age or you believe me — I don't know why my age should be a problem like...that means that only the underage have to live in Bremen. So if you're not underage you cannot live in Bremen. What is that? You know, I don't even understand that, I wanna live in Bremen, no matter what. Bremen is the place I wanna live. I don't wanna live in that camp or other places you send me. I don't wanna live there, I wanna live in here. But they said, ‘No,’ because I am overage. So I'm over 18, I cannot live in Bremen. So that's the problem, that's the reason. They decide that I'm over 18 and if you're over 18, you must not stay in Bremen. Thats what they said.”

“If I understand your question well, if it had any negative impact on me? If that is the case, yes it has. There is a lot of negative impact, it is more like you are denied of the right of being treated as a minor and you have to prepare yourself to deal with the situation as an adult. Many times, it is difficult if they reject you automatically and you have to live a life of an adult and as an adult you are treated differently. As an adult migrant in Germany, especially in Bremen, you are going through different camps and these camp lives are really difficult and tough. There are a lot of difficulties and many times, you will have a transfer to leave Bremen. That means that you have to go out of Bremen which is very difficult for many of us as migrants if you are not accepted as a minor. If you go outside of Bremen to another city, then, in many occasions they decide to take you to different cities also. If you are unlucky, you end up being deported back to your country, because in Bremen people refuse to go out. In Bremen, you are a bit safe from deportation. For me, it is a very negative aspect of being rejected as a minor. It has a lot of negative impacts on me, and us minors, as black migrants, because it is very difficult to even have a school to go to. These schools that you have in the end are not normal schools, it is more like adult schools of learning the language. It has a lot of negative impacts and mentally, it has a lot of negative impacts on me, because there is also a lot of letters that you receive. It is more like — threatening. You have to be mentally strong to deal with the situation itself.”

“That is the consequences: Dublin, asylum, going for asylum and then you are not accepted. I know some friends that went back to Italy after all this. Also, some are here, not in the system, because they are transferred and they are here and are not accepted.”

“So, I gave them my passport so that they can — because I plan in them you know, because we have to trust each other. But Germans, you trust them but they didn't trust you. I have to give my own document to the immigration because I believe that if I trust them, that [the document] will help. But, I gave them my paper and my passport and they refused to give it back, they said, ‘No.’ If I want my passport back, only when I want to leave Germany, that's the time I can have my passport.”

“When they take me to Gottlieb, the first day I entered this place, I said: ‘No. This is not Germany! I can't believe this is Germany!’ I said: ‘No, sorry people!’ The welcome message that they give me is: ‘Boy, you are unlucky!’ So, this time, I didn't know what is unlucky, but you are also unlucky. Sia here and everybody is saying that. So one day I saw someone and I ask him: ‘Why is everybody telling me, you know, you are unlucky?’ He said, ‘Boy, can you see the environment? These bars and the neighbors? When you are here, they forget about you.’ Nobody, even your assistant — because even these paper that they are giving you, when you have a control, the police are going to take you to another fingerprint and give — (...) People that are living in that camp are not even existing. So this is only for food. So, it is like you are here but illegally and after this interview they tell you, ‘We give you three months to make an appeal.’ So, in these three months you are on your own. So all the people who go to this place, they came with big dreams… to be an engineer, to be a — you know? But when you see, this place is a dream killer. Everybody there was kind of frustrated, nobody thinks positive, we all feel like now we are bar blocked, nothing seems to amaze you. Because there is nobody there even who is a source of help, so everybody in this place will be kind of frustrated. Even when I came here, it was 90 people who were there, so I have talked to a lot of people. They believe, for example, that when they say are 17 years and when they are 18 years completed, this is the time the [...] will start to process their cases and give them transfer. So, this moment when you are living there, they kind of forget about you but not forget about you. They are waiting for closure of the minor that you claim that you are. So when it is the case, they will only come and give you the ticket from the government and they will tell you that you should leave Bremen. So, ‘where am I going?’ You don't know.”

“Where the bed was, not even an animal could have slept in peace. And I went to the police several times and said, ‘Look at that, if you can sleep there, then I will sleep there too.’ Until they finally gave me new bedding.”

“Yeah, this is the whole thing. Because it is not easy when you come here illegally, when you come without papers, and they deny your age. And they take you to these Heims with more than 800–900 people. Five, six people in one room. You cannot even go to bed earlier. A lot of disturbance. And, the time we were at Lindenstraße, this alarm always used to come around 2 or 3 A.M. in the night. You cannot even sleep when you are going to school. So, it was a lot we go through.”

“I go to school in the afternoon and come back in the evening. When I come back and ask them to give me my food they tell me that the food time is finished. So you see, it was a big problem for me with them. I have been there almost for 2 months and did not eat lunch or dinner, just breakfast. Every month Sozial paid me 149 Euros, I used this — no, it was 139 euros. I used this to buy ticket for one month for 39 euros. So, the 100 euros, this is what I used to eat a whole month for my lunch and dinner. I have to go to school, I must go to school, they just waste my time, they do not want to help me, I have help myself. This is how I keep my motivation; I used this money to buy some couscous and stuff that would last for long. This is how I do; I force myself to get a better life. I believe it is the only way I can do it. There is a lot of difference between Lindenstraße and Bundes. At least, in Bundes, at night when you are hungry and you say, ‘Give me a banana or yogurt,’ they give you, but in Lindenstraße they have nothing like that. So, you know, they have lots of difference.”

“...I don't think someone should live in that camp. I don't think someone should live there. Because the camp is like: they don't have windows, the windows are not allowed to open, and you feel insecure sometimes. A lot of people — 5 people in one room. In this room, there will be 5 beds here and there is no window, there is no oxygen. And the security — they don't have a good attitude. They speak to you the way they want. You don't have privacy in your room too. They can open your room anytime, even when you are sleeping or you are not there. It is like a prison cell, that is what I am calling it. So it's totally hell in Lindenstraße. People used to be frustrated and do a lot of stuff. I don't think Lindenstraße is somewhere someone should live even one day. It is not different in a prison compared to Lindenstraße, especially in the Corona quarantine period.” Q: “How long did the quarantine in Lindenstraße in 2020 last?” A: “It was like one month in Lindenstraße, we had one-month quarantine.” Q: “One whole month?” A: “One month and you are not allowed to go out. Yeah, and their food is not even healthy, it is not good for even animal consumption. It is not good for human beings and they are giving those foods to people. It is bread and I don't know how to call it — I just ate this food the time I came to Lindenstraße. But we just thank this association Together we are Bremen (TWAB). They provided a lot of stuff for us in this quarantine time. So we felt like we could just enjoy the moment. It was difficult for us, but we just enjoyed the moment that we are living. Especially, because the quarantine was in Ramadan. And Siaka and Suleyman and other people from TWAB helped us with cooking stuff and shopping. That's why we had everything that we wanted in that quarantine moment. You just had to write TWAB what you want, and then it will be delivered to you. So we just thank TWAB for the support they have made. It was really making us grateful. We just spent one month of quarantine in that camp. But what would have happened if we did not have that help! I don't think we would have made it even one week because it was Ramadan. People fast all day and they are not allowed to go out and buy stuff for themselves and you keep those people in one place. If it was not for their help, the camp would be — I don't know, maybe we would not be here, sitting and talking. I don't know what would have happened, because everyone would have been frustrated. And I don't know what could happen, maybe something will happen, no one knows. We don't have any idea. Because everybody would get angry.”

“...I was still living in the camp, but all of my friends were transferred to other camps. Normally, in Lindenstraße, for people, living in Lindenstraße is like hell. I don't think it is only in Lindenstraße, it is all these camps. People are not allowed to do stuff, it is not good. People should not live even one day in those camps. It was really crazy. And then I went to Zollhaus last year.” Q: “Zollhaus — is that a camp or what is it?” A: “It is not different from Lindenstraße, but in this one, you live in your own room, you have your bath. But you don't have your privacy, they open your room anytime they want. They control you, they tell you that you have to come before 1 o'clock, 12 you should be here, you have to sleep here in the camp, no matter what.” Q: “It is like, they treat you like little children.” A: “You have to sleep here, no matter what happens. I think they have a contract, the AWO and Sozial (Sozialamt). Sozial is paying for the night. And the AWO — they want you to sleep here so that they can get paid. If you don't sleep here one day or two days — if it is one day they will call you, if it is two days they will kick you out. Those are the rules, and you have to maintain it. Or they will kick you out. They kick a lot of people out, because they are not used to that. They cannot take their rights, not going out until 1 o'clock, sleep there, they are not allowed to eat in their rooms.”

“...Yeah you get rejected because they say ‘We don't believe in your age, the age you give to us. We don't believe it. So you are rejected.’ So they said: ‘We will not take you.’” Q: “At this point you were in Bundes?” A: “Yeah.” Q: “After the rejection, what happened next, to you in particular?” A: “They told me in Bundes: ‘Maybe if you are lucky enough — I don't know 2 days, 3 days, 4 days and then you will get a transfer. Within a week, you get a transfer to go to Lindenstraße.’” Q: “What is this Lindenstraße?” A: “This Lindenstraße is the big camp or big lager or I don't know. So, they will transfer you to there. A lot of people are living in there — so in one room it will be like 4 people, yeah. Minimum 3 or 4 people and also maximum of 8, 9 or 10 people. That room will be very small, so all these people will be living in those rooms. Lindenstraße is a big camp and also there is no good food, as we all know, at this camp. Even in Bundes there is no good food. So everywhere — no good foods, no nothing. And the camp keep smelling like — you don't even know — a lot of people are living there, no windows, no nothing.” Q: “So that's the living condition in Lindenstraße [A agrees]. And were you able to spend a time in Lindenstraße during the corona pandemic?” A: “Yeah, I was living there in corona pandemic. They came and test us and said, ‘You all are positive so you have to quarantine for like 2 weeks,’ so then we were there for 2 weeks for our quarantine.” Q: “I heard some had to do quarantine for a month, were you also part of the people who had to do quarantine for a month or more or did you just do your quarantine for 2 weeks?” A: “Our group was lucky enough. They just do only for 2 weeks but people who did their quarantine first time because we were the last group that had to be quarantined so I think that's the reason we were lucky enough not to get one month but the first group went for like one month towards quarantine. Our group just got a two weeks quarantine, yeah we were lucky enough.” Q: “How was your living condition during quarantine? As you said, the food was not good and if you're in quarantine you cannot get food for yourself, right? So how did you manage to...?” A: “Yeah, our quarantine in our group, we are lucky — that also came exactly in Ramadan — so we are lucky enough Together We Are Bremen (TWAB) everyday they cook and they bring food for us to break our fast, that food is a lot of food. So we are lucky enough during this Ramadan and this quarantine then, we didn't eat their camp food because TWAB was there to support us with the food and they made us very good food so we are lucky enough to have those good food but not from the camp. The camp — their food is very bad so we cannot be doing Ramadan: fasting and eating that food at the same time, we will not survive, we will die.”

Q: “Are you financially supported by the state?” A: “Now, no. Before yes, when I was in the camp, every month you receive — I do not know how much — but you receive a social benefit. But right now, no social benefit from the state because the problem is that I was asked to be transferred out of Bremen to a different city. I think this is around Hanover, it is called Bad Fallingbostel. It is a camp, then I refused to go to this place, because Bremen is where I want to live and I like it here in Bremen. I have a lot of friends here; so it is more like a home to me. I don't want to go to any other village where I have never been to, and I know nobody there. Here, they tell you to integrate and I have done this by myself. I have been well-integrated here. I have been here for 2 years, I have been to school, I am almost doing my B1 now, so why would I leave Bremen to another start? This is the reason why I refused to go. They refused to give me any social benefit at the moment, and I do not have any health insurance card, like everybody else. So everything I have to do for myself. It is difficult, but I will stay true to it.” Q: “Do pay for any administration process? Do you self-pay the lawyers?” A: “Yes, I have to pay. Anything I am doing now is all by myself or the support I get from people, but from the state not at all.” Q: “And also, you don't have access to food and health care?” A: “No access to health care, no access to social benefit, no access to any other help from the state. Only from the social workers: not from the Sozialamt, but from the people who help us, friends or other non-political groups, but nothing from the state.” Q: “So how do you access healthcare when you get sick?” A: “That is difficult to access any healthcare at the moment. Many times, when I am sick I have to go to the private hospitals and pay. Some of them help. Some hospitals you pay a lot and there are also some humanitarian hospitals or clinics you can go to, but not all of them help. Many of those humanitarian places cannot help you on certain drugs, it is really difficult. I have spent money, for example, I had a toothache and that took a few weeks for me, so I had to fix these. I went to a private clinic and pay the Zahnarzt to help, and he removed it. Although it was expensive, there was no other way out.” Q: “After your minor age was rejected and then being transferred to another Bundesland, staying now in Bremen, do you have any support of the society?” A: “From the society like?” Q: “Is there any kind of groups, people, friends, or any kind of help from the society in Bremen?” A: “Yes sure, I got a lot of help. When I was in the adult camp, I was also doing activism regarding migration, so I joined this group called Together We Are Bremen (TWAB) and we fought together, and we still fight together. Up to now, I still get a lot of support from this group, they are doing a lot for me in terms of financial issues and stuff like that and accommodation as well.”

Q: “I can imagine how frustrating it is to go through one year of school — waking up everyday, every morning with all energy and everything and at the end of the day just for the last day for you to feel like yes this is my hard work and it's time for me to achieve what I have been struggling for and then just out of the blue something just come out without basis just to stop you from getting there — it's really hard. And I can imagine how painful that must have been. So, at the moment, you are not in the system, right?” A: “No.” Q: “So, how do you manage to survive? Because if you're not in the system, it means you're not having support from the society, let's say, or the state. So how are you coping with this?” A: “Yeah, it is a very difficult situation because I don't expect to come to Germany, to Europe, to be in this situation. I came here for a reason. So if I came into a country and you tell me that I'm illegal to live in your country and I don't even know how can a human being be illegal? Because I leave my country to come into your country and you said I'm illegal. That's the only reason. You said I will not have anything, you'll not give me. I don't need nothing from you — just tell me, ‘Look, you are here, you're gonna stay here with us,’ and I don't even need anybody. Just say, ‘Yeah, you can go to work.’ Just give me something but you said, ‘Nothing.’ You give me nothing and said, ‘You are illegal here.’ So, I'm thankful there is another group in Bremen which helps us. They give us money every week, yeah. So, I'm coping — small money, little money is not enough but yeah, I'm thanking god that — Alhamdulillah, that I'm getting little from there so that's how I manage to survive. Yeah that's how I'm coping because I'm illegally here, that's why I cannot live here.” Q: “How is your living conditions because if you're — its difficult to have living — or are you staying with your family?” A: “No, of course not. I'm living from one place to another like you get into — some people are moving from one place to another like every two weeks or every one month or two months.” [Q: Like just moving?] A: “Yeah, like someone who is having a house and he want to go for holidays or something for two weeks. So, when this person want to offer his house, you then go and stay there during his holidays so you will stay there sometime for one month, some for two months, sometime for two weeks or three weeks. So, that's how you manage. If this person is gone so you can live in this house and then go to another house and finding a house is very difficult. So very very difficult, you know, very difficult. So that's how we are managing the situation.” Q: “It's like in the process you lost sense of belonging because you don't know where—” A: “No no no no.” Q: “You don't have even roof over your head to call your safe space?” A: “You don't. Germans, they said like, human beings are illegal to live in their country with the one reason. They said I'm over age — I'm over 18. They decide that I'm over 18 and they said: ‘When you're over 18, you cannot live here in Bremen so that means you are illegal. So you cannot live here but if you wanna live here, that's your own business.’ So you have to find a solution for yourself but they cannot take care of you.”

“The other impact, I would say, is that at the end of the day, if things are knocking you down and down — at the end of the day, you have a lot of black people who end up on the street, selling drugs. You cannot blame them, that is the situation and the system that forced them into this. If I tell you how old I am and you say, ‘No, you are older than that,’ you are forcing me into something else. If I am not able to be mentally strong to deal with the situation, I will put myself into something else. Then, I have to survive. The only way out is to do something else and to have money for myself.”

“Yeah, I feel like I was robbed — my time was robbed by the system. Yeah, it really waste my time because I have to delete everything I have planned, I have to drop that and then focus on the system, how to be part of the system. It is really crazy, you know? I have to think — when I wake up in the day what I want to do, go to school and then from school we do this, then maybe some chances or some courses when I don't have the opportunity. I have to sit and think how to be part of the system, how to be accepted. Yeah, so this was a really bad thing for me.”

“Yeah, I am Lamin and I come from Gambia. I was in Italy before I came to Germany, to Bremen. So, when I came new in Germany, I was 17 years old. When I came here, I went to Bundes. It is a minor camp. Before I went there, I have some friends who took me there. They asked me, ‘How old are you?’ I said, ‘I'm 17.’ I was there and 3 months later they took me to an office, they asked me some questions about how I came to Europe and how I lived my life and other stuff. Later, in 2 weeks they said that I am 19 years old. I said, ‘That's not my age,’ but they said, ‘That is what we decided.’ I asked them, ‘Can I bring evidence to show my real age?’ They said, ‘It does not work like that here, the only way we can accept that, is if we have any document from Europe.’ But if I have any other paper from Africa, they do not believe that, because so many people can make that. I don't know how that works. If I asked some friends to get me my birth certificate I can get it, but they said no, I am 19, that is their decision and that's it. They said that 19 is also good for me, I should not be worried about anything. It was difficult, but I see it as it is, I am in Europe, in Germany and I do not know how their system works. I am new here and I don't want to have any problem with anybody here. There is nothing I can do. I asked, ‘What I can do to fight this age? Because I don't want it, I want my real age.’ They said that I can take a lawyer and do an appeal. This is what they told me. So, later I got a transfer to a big camp, there is like, maybe 300 to 400 people. I stayed 7 to 8 months there, they gave me a lawyer to fight my case, so I went to the first court that is only for younger age and they accepted my age as 17. But they said that it is not enough evidence to give me my real age. They will have to forward it to another case, they have to go to another court. It is like, 2 courts have to decide that. The first is the younger courts, they have different names, the second one is the bigger one, that makes the last decision. If they say 17, then they will accept it. I waited almost a year, I was going to school, I was playing football and that is it, another day, you know.”

“I want to think about the notion that the system is robbing our time. L. formulated it like this in one of our interviews. I first want to talk about the change of paths. Because the time is short, you have to change paths, you know. Maybe when you come to Europe you have this plan or this dream of what you want to do, but because your time is wasted in this system you have to change your path and you have to change what you want to do. Because that system is robbing our time. So, who is this system as a robber? It robs our time, for example, because we have to use our time for legal fights. There is all that time that you need to fight, to go to lawyers, and for all these things that you have to do. The bone test, for example. Also, transfers take a lot of time. Because it is not like you come here today and then immediately all the legal issues are settled and immediately you are settling in the place that you wish to stay at. Rather, it will take one year before you know. It will also take months before you get transferred to the place that the system wants you to settle at. It will take months until you have the chance to even do the bone test, and then you have to wait for the result. And then there is the time that you spend out of the system, you know. This time is also wasted because you cannot work on your future. And then there is also the time before you get out of the system, you know, the initial time when you tried to register as a minor and waited for the results, when you did the legal fights and everything. That is all time that is taken from your life. And then you get out of the system. And then there is the time living in camps, you know. I think that is very important, all the time that people spend in the camps, all the months, or years, you know. And this time robbery also affects schooling, education, and opportunities. When you are waiting for your results, fighting legal fights, or are out of the system, you can either not attend a school or it's harder to focus at school because of all that insecurity. This is a violation of our fundamental rights because they deny us opportunities. I feel like this is a violation. One of the time robber's main tools is bureaucracy. Yeah, I think most of our time is wasted on bureaucracy. Going from office to office. I think it is making people go crazy. So, I think it should be called bureaucrazy. And there is also the process and the laws that denied us to live these dreams here. That also relates to the problem of time. It is like a process that you have to undergo. You have to go and make interviews, go for the test, and all this: these are processes. But it is not only about processes. There are also laws that force people, they have to support these things that you have to do. All of that is connected to all these processes that rob our time. It all comes down to a denial — of our time, of our opportunities, of our rights.”

Q: “How is it, for you, living here without any document? You know, you cannot do anything, how is it for you to live illegally here?” A: “It was very hard for me at the time. First, when they sent me to Lindenstraße, it was crazy: me fighting with this Dublin and my age going up and down. I was going to school but I didn't even concentrate on school. When I go to school, I cannot even learn. My mind was on this issue, on this thing, like, whether I will be deported back to Italy or not, and whether I will be able to stay in Bremen or not, so all those things are in my head. So even when I was in school, I cannot even do anything there, it was a tough moment for me, but I keep strong and still fight for it.”

“Yeah I don't know if the authorities want those people to integrate, you know (laughs nerviously). They don't support it, at least. I mean they could also say, ‘Okay, you are participating in a course, you are doing everything that is expected from you regarding your integration, so we let you continue doing that,’ but they don't. I don't know, I mean, my colleague — she had a student and he did everything, he had his B1, he even had an Ausbildung and they still told him, ‘No, you can't stay.’”

“It's difficult to generalise, I don't know, some people manage really well. They have support, of course, they have somebody who is looking for an accommodation for them where they can stay and they have financial support. And yeah, I have had students who were not in the system but who had this support and who were really resilient and really strong and I don't know how, but they managed to go every day and they had the goal of reaching B1 and they did. But then, there are many other students who, of course, are really stressed and — like I had one student who is maybe the other extreme but he was kicked out of the system and he was living on the street and he didn't find any accommodation and he didn't have any support. So yeah, he slept in the tram at night until the tram closed, I don't know what he did afterwards (laughs). And yeah, then he came to school super tired, he passed out in school and we had to call the ambulance. I think he had to go stealing in the supermarket. One day, a guy came over and said, ‘Your student has been stealing in the supermarket. I am going to call the police now.’ I think at some point he find an empty house that he could sleep in and — but then, the owner of the house called and said, ‘Your student is sleeping in my house,’ that's not possible and he was in a really bad situation. He couldn't attend school, he was either super tired or maybe he was taking something, I don't know. He was not well and he didn't manage to come regularly at all and in the end, he disappeared, I don't know what happened to him. At some point, he didn't show up any more and yeah, he would have been a good student, he had a lot of knowledge, he was motivated, but he...he couldn't — I mean what should you do if you don't have even a place to sleep?”

“Even if we write that he had suicidal crises a few times, even this is often taking a long time and only a few cases are accepted that this is a reason to stay. So, in my opinion, it is a little bit like a gambling with the life of people. You risk that people actually kill themselves because you accept so few cases as really suicidal.”

“They are the foundation, you know. I am cool but this is it, this is how they do it, this is how they plan it. In the process, some people lose their minds. Yeah, some can control it, but even me, there was a time I was very low, thinking if I am going to survive the system. There are many things that we are facing, like a lot of obstacles — this is very very hard.”

Q: “Okay, my next question is, how did you adjust towards the impact of age assessment? Like, did it have any negative impact on you? Were you stressed out, were you depressed? Did you see any psychologist and how did you get access, who helped you out?” A: “Yes, I do, because it was really sad, that I cannot defend myself. They are in control, they control me — that is the way I can say it. I said, ‘I can bring my birth certificate.’ They said that they do not need it. Even if I bring it, their decision is their decision. This is how they told me. This really disturbed me, because I have my school papers, and I cannot bring them because the age they gave me is different from my certificate. If I bring it here, it could cause me problems. If I have to go to school or do some course, and I tell them that I did this course and I want to just continue, they have to ask me to start again. The reason is, if I can bring some other documents and show that I did it, but I cannot do it, because if I do it, it shows I have a different age, that I am not the same person. It really disturbs me. I got stressed. I cannot sleep, I wake up in the morning with headache, I go to the hospital. Everyday I am at the hospital, I have too many pains. I don't even understand, I have never got sick like this. I have a lot of depression, sometimes my psychologist even gets tired of me. (...) I was really tired, I have stomach pain, I have headache sometimes, there was a day I even passed out. It was a really sad situation, I couldn't do nothing, what they decide that is it. They just ask you questions, you answer it, but they make their own — they just say what they want to say. It is like, you ask me questions, I answer them, but you do not care about my answers. This is how I feel, this is how I think they do it. My psychologist tried, she is a lady and she helped me a lot. She advised me a lot, she helped me write some letters, to try to show my lawyer, that I am really sick, that they need to help me. Where I stay, the food is not good, they have to get me out there, to stay in a better situation, but it takes time. At least, time goes on, it changes step by step.”