Increasingly, it is becoming difficult and almost impossible for Ghanaians to be able to convince the UK’s Home Office (UK Visas & Immigration) with Ghanaian Birth Certificates as evidence of parentage.
This is because of the widespread ease in obtaining Ghanaian Birth Certificates which the Home Office has been officially made aware—making them doubt almost every Ghanaian Birth Certificate presented to them in recent as strong evidence of parentage.
If you are in the UK and you wish to bring your children to the UK, it is no more enough to present birth certificates, photos and even health records of these children to confirm your relationship with them.
As an Immigration practitioner, I have in the last few months seen countless refusals like the one attached, where the Home Office seems to from start treat Ghanaian birth certificates with doubt—claiming that they don’t trust the authenticity or genuineness of these certificates.
Of course, you can get a Ghanaian birth certificate for your child easily in Ghana and some unscrupulous obtain these certificates fraudulently or for fraudulent reasons. However, this does not mean that every Ghanaian birth certificate ought to be treated with such doubt.
There seems to be a blanket dissatisfaction with this document as long as it is coming from Ghana. And the Home Office would always find something, sometimes even ridiculous, to say in order to reject the birth certificate or to cast doubt and refuse an application.
Now, Ghanaians are left with one what possible layer of protection which is to have a DNA test done for their children they want to bring to the UK—and add the DNA test results to the birth certificates.
Apart from the obvious family life and privacy invasion that DNA tests come with, they do not come cheap. Just this week, I had to book a DNA for a client and his 4 children, totalling about £1,000—all because the Home Office claims the doubt authenticity of the children’s birth certificates.
Even when you have presented a DNA test results, the Home Office does not accept this on the face of it—they go as far as contacting the DNA company to authenticate this.
What’s even confusion is that the same birth certificates being rejected are always used to obtain the children’s passports in Ghana—which the Home Office seems to have no qualms with.
The above makes you think that the Home Office simply wants to make it extra difficult for people to bring their children over to the UK—even if this is not their intention, it is what is being caused by what seems like a recent blanket rejection of Birth Certificates coming from Ghana.
I have spoken to several other Immigration practitioners in the UK and they say they also keep getting same or similar paragraphs of refusals from the Home Office about Ghanaian Birth Certificates—suggesting that this is a wide department approach.
Then again, even if Ghana’s own Supreme Court’s recent ruling sort of indicates that the Ghanaian Birth Certificate cannot be trusted on its own (as it cannot be used to register to vote in Ghana), then the Home Office’s hovering doubt about the veracity of such certificates when presented is somewhat justified.
If you or your children have been refused visas to the UK because of same or similar Birth Certificate issue, contact Adukus Solicitors on +447837576037 or via E-mail: [email protected]
When it comes to UK Immigration Law, I mostly represent those coming to the UK to study, visit, settle or work–by representing them in their various applications, appeals, Administrative Review and Judicial Review. If you need legal representation in securing a visa to come to the UK or overturning a refusal via Appeal, Administrative Review or Judicial Review, contact me via Whatsapp/Direct Call: +447837576037 or E-mail: [email protected].
