Bulawayo residents have called on the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage to relax the requirements for acquiring primary documents such as birth certificates and national identification cards to help stateless, undocumented individuals access these documents.
This call was made during a public hearing held yesterday by the Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs, Security Services, and War Veterans’ Affairs on the statelessness of migrants in Zimbabwe.
This follows a petition by Amnesty International to Parliament regarding stateless individuals in the country. According to UNHCR, an estimated 300,000 people in Zimbabwe are undocumented.
Speaking during the public hearing, participants highlighted the historical issues leading to statelessness, such as grandparents born in other countries and parents dying without documentation, making it difficult for descendants to acquire primary documentation.
Ward 28 Councillor Ntandoyenkosi Ndlovu noted that statelessness is a significant problem in Ngozi Mine (Richmond), impacting education, employment, and access to health services. “I represent parts of Ngozi Mine where we have many stateless people. Statelessness is a big problem; many people reside in Ngozi Mine because it is a melting pot of people from different parts of the country. They settle there, leave, and move to other places.
“This issue is a very big problem because it means people don’t have access to education as it’s a legal requirement to have a birth certificate to go to school. Some of them cannot be legally employed, and some cannot get access to health facilities and so on. I think when we allow this problem to persist, we are leaving a lot of people behind,” he said.
Councillor Ndlovu urged the Portfolio Committee to recommend that the Ministry of Home Affairs relax the conditions for obtaining documents such as birth certificates and IDs. “Let us allow community leaders to provide testimonials for these people without IDs and birth certificates. Let us allow our councillors, pastors, and headmasters to provide recommendations that are acceptable to the Home Affairs Ministry,” he said.
The Headman of Hyde Park Village also tabled a similar request. “Children at school have no birth certificates, and it’s really hard for them to secure these. Please remove some of the requirements,” he said.
Madabuka Moyo from Ngozi Mine advocated for a mobile registry office in their area.
“There is nothing we can do unless we get IDs, and that can only come if we get a mobile registry. Where we stay, it’s like we are homeless people, but if they can come to us, we will receive help. Go and speak in Parliament that the laws need to be relaxed. Don’t put stringent laws when we were born in this country; we are now treated like foreigners,” said Moyo.
Another speaker, Skhangezile Maphosa from Ngozi Mine, shared that her entire family lacks IDs following the death of her foreign-born parents.
“Our parents died, and all my siblings have no birth certificates and IDs. We have children who also don’t have birth certificates. My uncle, whom we knew, also died, leaving his children without identification cards. We don’t know where to start since our parents have all died. We don’t know what to do,” she said.
Moyo added that residents of Ngozi Mine avoid clinics due to poor treatment because they lack documentation. “As people in Ngozi Mine, we don’t even go to clinics as we are treated as filthy people. This is abusing us, as we now realize the importance of identification cards,” she said.
Ward 2 Councillor Adrian Moyo highlighted the impact of lacking documentation on economic participation.
“My ward has many informal settlements. Trenance and part of Ngozi Mine fall under Ward 2. The issue of documentation has a huge bearing on one’s ability to participate in economic activities as well as enjoy human rights as enshrined in the Constitution. I propose that while you are in the commendable process of aligning laws to the constitution, it is my submission that as we wait for the wheels of justice to turn, we can have, through your committee, a moratorium covering the whole country for two years, as it has been rightly declared that there are 300,000 undocumented citizens in this country,” he said.
Councillor Moyo suggested a two to five-year moratorium to enable those who are undocumented to be assisted. “During that moratorium, it has to be communicated to all Home Affairs offices where documents are obtained that they do not turn undocumented people away.”
