“I have more than 100 clients blocked in Europe, because they do not exist in the civil status registers in Senegal” (5/5) July 7, 2026
Lawyer Patrick Kabou, who defends expatriates before European courts, discusses the harm of civil status fraud. He said, in this exchange, that more than 100 of his Senegalese clients are stranded in Europe because their names have been removed from the civil status file by counterfeiters.
Master, you have deployed to certain countries to help with the regularization of Senegalese compatriots. What does this work involve?
Our firm is established in Spain and other countries. For Spain, we are in the heart of Madrid. At the same time, as an academic and human rights specialist, I am a member of many humanitarian organizations. It is in this sense that I coordinate a large team to facilitate and support our compatriots in their regularization process.
What are the biggest problems you face in this job?
The biggest problem is the documentation. For example, for our compatriots who came to Spain via canoes, this goes from registration, once on the ground, to obtaining the Spanish residence permit.
The administrative work begins with the translation of the reasons mentioned by the arrival, then their psychological and medical care, etc. at the time of taking fingerprints. The correct translation of the reasons given for coming to Spanish soil is very important. It makes it possible to identify humanitarian emergencies for the asylum procedure.
The tragedy of civil status fraud affects some of your clients. Can you come back to this scourge?
Gradually, civil status fraud became the main problem in the procedure. It makes it difficult to identify the individual and especially to know which procedure corresponds to them. The process for a minor is different from that of an adult.
Today, I have clients being prosecuted in Europe, just because when they came to countries like France, they had papers that they are no longer able to renew in their municipality, because they erase registers in the name of other people. Without understanding anything, they find themselves illegal. For money they were sacrificed, their deed having been sold to other people.
I call on the State of Senegal to look into this crime, because honest citizens find themselves deleted from the registers, and as a result, find themselves in a situation of undocumented immigrants.
You met compatriots disillusioned by the loss of their identity. Can you tell us about some of them, their stories and the harms of this fraud?
I have more than 100 Senegalese who, today, are stuck in the West, because they no longer exist on any civil register in the country. Therefore, it is impossible for them to renew their stay or complete their naturalization procedure.
It’s a crime that happens in certain civil status centers. Before the courts, defending these compatriots becomes my daily actions. How can I explain to a judge or an administration that the person I am defending does exist, but that someone in Senegal has chosen to remove their name from the register by giving their number or identity to another person?
Myself, when leaving Senegal, I had my driving license. During a first renewal, I made the mistake of giving my new address in France and since then, someone has had the pleasure of giving my license to another person.
Returning to Senegal to complete the procedures following the digitalization, I discovered that I no longer have a permit. I had to postpone my return to France and retake my license.
Have you taken steps in Senegal to regularize your clients in the civil status files?
I believe that it is up to the State and its services to urgently resolve this issue which has ended up corrupting and affecting the confidence of the Senegalese in their civil status service and especially the distrust that the courts of many European countries have about the reliability and authentication of certain documents presented by our compatriots.
Counterfeiters expose us to statelessness. My office is, each time, obliged to try to retrace the route and, sometimes, to make the trip to verify information or ask to recheck certain documents before submitting them to the judicial and administrative institutions.
The journey to rediscover one’s identity is that of the fighter. These counterfeiters, with their accomplices, very often engage in blackmail with my clients. Once aware of the urgency of the situation, they are more often in one-upmanship.
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