Within the project #StatelessJourneys supported by the European Network on Statelessness, we talked to a woman from Eritrea:
"I grew up and lived all my life in Tesseney. I have two sisters and four brothers. We are a big family. I also have two sons. They are 8 and 13 years old. My husband is in jail. So I need to raise our children alone. My parents helped me a lot. But my family is poor, and my parents cannot support us all. I never worked before since I was not able to find a job in our city. The only way for me to find money to provide for my sons and family is to try to reach Europe and find a job.
In Tesseney I found a man who helped me get a fake passport. It was the first time I had any kind of document. In my family no one ever had one. I never tried to obtain it since I did not need it in my everyday life. I was born at home. I also gave birth to my sons at home. They do not have any documents either. In Eritrea for example, you do not need health insurance, you just need to pay to visit a doctor. The only time when I needed an ID card was when I finished primary school. I did not get a certificate because I had no documents. Now it is like I never went to school.
When I got my fake passport, I flew from Eritrea to Turkey. I stayed with a group of people in Istanbul only one day and then continued to Greece. In Greece I stayed around one month in the smuggler’s house. No one noticed I was there. I reached Serbia via Macedonia. In the Serbian town of Vranje the police caught me with a group I was travelling with. We were taken to the police station. The police officers asked for my name, nationality, date of birth and some other personal data, and also took my fingerprints. They gave us each a document written in Serbian and let us go.
Now I am thinking what my next step will be. I wish to go to Germany. I do not know anyone living in that country. My friends and family have told me that life is good there. Let’s see. It is hard for me to be separated from my children but coming to Europe was the only way I can support them in the future."
