here - Cooperazione Italiana allo Sviluppo

Personal identity is not defined by a name and surname, not even by an identitydocument, which does not exist, and which would limit to only one name and tosome physical features the multiple identities of which a person is composed. Thename in Nigeria changes according to the person with whom the subject is incontact and the context of where she is, showing different personal relationshipsand characteristics. Outside the extended family nucleus the different names withwhich a person is called constitutes the basis of the recognised family identity, suchas the identity that makes the person in question a human being and not someone“fallen from the sky”.Therefore it is obvious how a false document can seem “normal” in a reply ofthe victim to such a question by the defending lawyer (in the course of a trial) onhow she could have thought it possible to go to Europe and become a florist if onehad already left from Ghana with a false document: “I didn’t think anything (...) itwas normal, seeing as I wasn’t Ghanaian. So, not being Ghanaian, I had toprovide a passport to enter and leave the border with Ghana (…) to pretend I wasGhanaian and therefore so I could leave it was necessary to have a false Ghanaianpassport” (report of evidence taken in the pre-trial stage, criminal proceedings -Turin, 2000).