In some circumstances the question is, if you are born or not born. That’s quite important, isn’t it?
The story goes like that in Germany.
An Indian couple is working in Germany since a few years. They of course have Indian passports and an legitimation to work in Germany.
Some years back they married traditionally in India, with their lovely families organising and joining the beautiful celebration.
And of course this is documented with an Indian marriage certificate.
And based on all that history, they are happy to pay the not so low taxes in Germany, are in the respective tax classes based on their marriage status.
After some time their marriage love affair results in a cute (of course :-)) baby boy. He’s healthy and the parents are happy although they are quite busy as it’s their first child.
And as it’s the habbit in Indian culture (and not only there) they want to show the baby to all the relatives in India. For this purpose of travelling everybody needs a valid passport, so also the baby boy.
Should be no problem, isn’t it?
So let’s go to the community center and get a passport for him. For getting a passport you need any certificate that you are existing and that you are the person you are claiming to be. But he does not have such a document. Means if you are getting a passport for the first time, you need a birth certificate.
It’s quite clear that the cute baby is existing. He’s shouting out loud and producing plenty of smells and other brownish looking stuff. So philosophically speaking „he’s producing something, so he exists.“.
Certificates
What do we need now for the birth certificate?
- A baby
- A mother
- If existing, a father
- A marriage certificate, if married
- Location of birth
- Date of birth
So everything should be alright and no problem, you think? Born or not born is out of question.
Not really. Everything is alright except the marriage certificate. I honestly don’t understand why we need a marriage certificate at all. But also that is existing, in Indian language though. And this certificate was fine enough for their work certificates and defining the tax classes. But now the trouble starts. The community (Standesamt) is not accepting the marriage certificate, altough it was accepted by the foreigner office (Ausländerbehörde) before. A marriage certificate must be authenticated by the German embassy in India, the communuity claims. The costs for that are about 500€ and some weeks (around 3-4 months) of waiting time in depression.
The good thing is that the baby boy got a stay permit in the mean time, and he’s even allowed to work (no joke!).
