VITALIS Palinje’s demeanour reflects a deep, unspoken psychological pain.
Often burying his head in his hands and sighing heavily, he appears overwhelmed, staring blankly as if questioning his fate.
Born to Malawian parents who fled to Zimbabwe in search of better opportunities, Palinje inherited their statelessness.
Without identity documents from Malawi or Zimbabwe, Palinje and his siblings have been denied birth certificates and national IDs, rendering them invisible in a country where citizenship is defined by such papers.
This lack of documentation leaves Palinje facing countless barriers, denying him basic rights and opportunities.
“I dropped out of school in sixth grade because I didn’t have a birth certificate,” Palinje said, his voice tinged with regret.
“It hurts to see my peers doing well while I struggle due to my lack of education.”
He continued: “Many people take an ID for granted, but not having one has ruined my future. I work as a commuter omnibus conductor because some employers don’t require IDs. My employer wanted to help me apply for a driver’s license, but that fell through because I don’t have an ID”.
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Without an ID, Palinje lives a life of uncertainty, a ghost in his own country. His plight mirrors that of hundreds of thousands in Zimbabwe who, despite being born and raised there, are not legally recognised as citizens of Zimbabwe or any other nation. Statelessness denies them access to basic rights like education, healthcare, and employment.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates millions of people globally are stateless, with about a third being children.
In Zimbabwe, many migrant workers from Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia, brought in by colonial authorities, and their descendants born before 1980, face severe barriers to citizenship, leaving them stateless.
“Generations of ethnic Ndebele people, largely settled in the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces, whose families were killed or disappeared during the Gukurahundi massacres in the early to mid- 1980s, are also affected by statelessness,” reads a report titled We Are Like Stray Animals, published by Amnesty International.
“During Gukurahundi and its aftermath, many thousands died, lost family members, and were forced to flee their homes. As a result, those born in the ensuing months and years were unable to be registered because they could not provide the death certificates of their parents required to prove Zimbabwean nationality, thereby rendering them stateless.”
Life for these people is unbearable. Employment, whether formal or informal, is a major challenge for stateless individuals. Nomsa Kadereka, 20, from Hopley, struggles to find work.
"I cannot work anywhere because of my situation. It is difficult to get employment even as a maid because people want to know who they are staying with and who they are entrusting their children with in their absence," she explained.
This lack of documentation traps stateless individuals in a cycle of poverty, with many opportunities blocked by their lack of identity.
Despite Zimbabwe being a state party to the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, aimed at protecting their rights, many stateless individuals do not enjoy these rights.
Tarisai Mutangi, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Law at the University of Zimbabwe, notes that the Convention ensures stateless persons have the same rights as citizens concerning freedom of religion, intellectual property, education of their children, access to courts, and rationing of scarce products.
"For other rights such as freedom of association, movement, employment, housing, and property, stateless persons are to receive at least the same treatment as other non-nationals," Mutangi added. Thandeka Sibanda from Nketa 7, Bulawayo, faces challenges with her small confectionery business due to her lack of an ID. She cannot receive payments via banks or electronic platforms like Ecocash.
"I ask clients to deposit payments into friends’ accounts, who then withdraw the money for a fee. My relatives in Tsholotsho rely on others to receive food aid and must give a portion to those who help them," Sibanda said.
Statelessness also affects access to education. Section 75(1) of the Zimbabwean Constitution grants every citizen and permanent resident the right to basic state-funded education. However, Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free…” People like Palinje, his sister Cecilia, and Kadereka have dropped out of primary school due to the lack of birth certificates.
"I have four children, and none have birth certificates. If this issue remains unresolved, they will also be stateless," Cecilia said.
This situation persists despite Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which states that “all actions concerning children, including in the area of nationality, must be undertaken with the best interests of the child as a primary consideration,” Cecilia added:
“I cannot register for vocational training programmes in Hopley to help my family survive. I have tried everything to acquire a birth certificate but have failed. Some people have taken advantage of our desperation, promising to help us but to no avail”.
For decades, people like the Palinjes have been deprived of their rights as citizens, denied documentation for education, work, healthcare, and other basic needs. Hundreds of thousands have been rendered stateless, stripped of any legal status in the country they regard as home.
"The government’s failure to remove administrative obstacles to these rights, particularly for descendants of pre-independence migrants and Gukurahundi victims, has forced people into daily struggles,” the Amnesty report states.
“These groups have been pushed to the margins of society."
This situation is contrary to the Constitution of Zimbabwe. Section 43 of the Constitution provides that: “Every person who was born in Zimbabwe before the publication day [of the Constitution] is a Zimbabwean citizen by birth if one or both of his or her parents was a citizen of a country which became a member of Sadc in 1992 and is resident in Zimbabwe”.
This means that any person born in Zimbabwe to parents with a claim to citizenship of any Sadc state, including Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, or South Africa, and residing in Zimbabwe, is a Zimbabwean citizen by birth.
Lucy Chivasa, a campaigns officer at Amnesty International, said her organisation is calling upon authorities to ensure that all stateless descendants of migrant workers from Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia are granted citizenship in line with the 2013 Constitution, which allows dual citizenship for descendants of migrant workers born in Zimbabwe.
“All those at risk of being stateless must be granted birth certificates and IDs without the requirement to furnish death certificates of their deceased parents,” Chivasa urged.
“We also advocate for amending the Citizenship of Zimbabwe Act and the Births and Deaths Registration Act to, among other key issues, recognise dual citizenship, late registration of birth, and the right to Zimbabwean nationality for all those migrants from Sadc states born in Zimbabwe if one of the parents is a Zimbabwean citizen or a citizen of a Sadc state, in line with the 2013 Constitution and relevant international norms.”
Unfortunately, several administrative challenges confront stateless individuals in their quest for recognition. Elizabeth from Bulawayo is one of the many people struggling to overcome these hurdles.
Born in Bulawayo to a Malawian father, Elizabeth remains stateless due to her father's foreign status, leaving her without identity documents. Her six children were forced to drop out of school because they lacked birth certificates but eventually obtained these documents as adults, listed under their aunt's name, who acted as a surrogate mother. Consequently, Elizabeth is not legally recognised as their mother.
“I was denied an ID in 1976 because my father provided incorrect information at the registry office. Attempts to register through mobile clinics in 2012 failed when I was instructed to visit Msiteli provincial registry in Bulawayo, 50 km away, and bring two witnesses with my surname,” she said.
Unable to afford the US$15 travel cost for the witnesses, she remained undocumented. When her son died in South Africa in 2015, she could not repatriate his body due to her lack of documentation. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs, Security Services, and War Veterans' Affairs conducted public hearings to understand the experiences of stateless people.
Contacted for comment regarding some of the proposed legislative measures to help the stateless access services like insurance products, portfolio chairperson Albert Nguluvhe said: “We are compiling the report and recommendations, which will be presented in Parliament. It is not procedural to disclose these details before the official tabling”.
Such are the challenges confronting stateless people in Zimbabwe, and one hopes that the recent public hearings provided adequate information required to help people like Elizabeth and her community obtain the documentation they need.
