birth records, and therefore cannot access primary documents when they return with their parents to Zimbabwe24. 19. Refugee and asylum seeker communities in Zimbabwe are also at risk of statelessness. Failed asylum seekers in refugee camps remain undocumented, and their children do not receive birth certificates. Former Rwandan refugees who have refused to repatriate to Rwanda due to continuing fear of persecution in their country, are also undocumented, together with their children. More than one thousand Mozambican asylum seekers who fled from Mozambique due to internal conflicts have not yet received refugee status. In the meantime, temporary resident permits cannot be issued to them, they cannot receive identity documents, and their children born in Zimbabwe cannot receive birth certificates.25 20. Following the devastating effects of Cyclone Idai in 2019, the Registrar General’s offices conducted mobile registration exercises in the Chimanimani District to assist victims who had lost their national documents26. Unfortunately, not all affected by the cyclone were able to have their documents replaced or processed. The ZHRC reported that officials still required national identity card or birth entry numbers: those who could not remember their numbers could not be assisted on the spot as verification had to be done through fingerprints. There was no follow up process to go back to areas where mobile registration exercises were conducted to assist people they had served and to issue the documents they had applied for. 21. Inter-sex persons also face registration challenges under Zimbabwe’s law. Their documented gender is chosen by their parents before puberty and there are only male and female categories. As such, when inter-sex people grow up, if they wish to change their gender in their identity documents to reflect their correct self-identified gender, or to register as inter-sex, Zimbabwe’s national law does not allow them to do so27. This can create risks of statelessness. 22. Children born out of wedlock, or whose parents have separated, or who are not present due to migration or other circumstance, face risks of statelessness as they are barred from birth registration. National law particularly discriminates against men attempting to register children in the absence of mothers, as highlighted in more detail below.28 National Law 23. No legal definition of ‘stateless’ person is found in national law, and no dedicated statelessness determination procedure has been established. The biggest gaps in national legislation, creating (increased risks of) statelessness is that the Citizenship of 24 Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence, Home Affairs and Security, 27 August 2019, Zimbabwe: Report on The Gwanda Community Youth Development Trust Petition on Access to Primary Documents, Accessible at: https://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/zimbabwe-report-on-the-gwanda-community-youth-development-trust-petition-on-accessto-primary-documents/. 25 Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, Report on National Inquiry on Access to Documentation in Zimbabwe, (April 2020), section XVI, available at: http://www.zhrc.org.zw/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NI-Report-1.pdf. 26 Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, 12 November 2019, available at: Zimbabwe: 3 000 Cyclone Idai survivors issued new identity documents, available at: http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/zimbabwe-3-000-cyclone-idai-survivors-issued-new-identitydocuments/, New Zimbabwe, 25 November 2019 Zimbabwe: Cyclone Idai survivors get free ID replacement, available at: http://citizenshiprightsafrica.org/zimbabwe-cyclone-idai-survivors-get-free-id-replacement/ 27 Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, Report on National Inquiry on Access to Documentation in Zimbabwe, (April 2020), section XIV, available at: http://www.zhrc.org.zw/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NI-Report-1.pdf. 28 Id. 5