________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ AJSW, Volume 9 Number 1 2019 NCUBE, N.; CHIMBWANDA, T.; & NCUMISA, W. refugee camp were denied entrance into Cheche High School based on the fact that they had no birth certificates. The local registrered children were given first preference (UNHCR, 2015). A state of statelessness The lack of formal birth registration and issuance of birth certificates can have an adverse impact on unregistered children in Zimbabwe, which can often lead to statelessness and socio-economic exclusion (UNHCR, 2015; UNICEF, 2014b). Birth registration is defined as “the continuous, permanent and universal recording within the civil registry, of the occurrence and characteristics of births in accordance with the legal requirements” of a country (OHCHR, 2014:3). Birth registration is critical in the prevention of statelessness, since it establishes a legal record of where a child was born and who his or her parents are. Therefore, the lack of documentation renders children susceptible to becoming stateless, as without birth certificates or proof of birth registration, they lack the key means of proving their nationality – nationality that would entitle them to certain rights in that country. Furthermore, without a birth certificate, refugee children are unable to maintain their nationality upon returning to their country of origin. However, the cultural tendency towards registering children with the fathers nationality poses a gendered challenge for birth registration in absence of the child’s father or the even that he is an undocumented or stateless person. Thus, there is a need to recognise the complexity embedded within the term ‘stateless’. A stateless person is someone who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law (McAdam, 2010:). A stateless person is accordingly not considered a national of their country of birth nor the country they habitually reside in and are thus without a nationality that they can claim. Stateless persons and undocumented persons are often confused and conflated with one another. On one hand, an undocumented migrant is a person who is not in possession of valid legal documentation which allow her to reside in a particular country (Paspalanova, 2007). Nonetheless, an undocumented person may become a stateless person, however the former does not predispose the latter. A number of the children at the refugee camp are undocumented and thus likely to become ‘stateless citizens’. Despite the rights children in the refugee camp access, such as the right to health (Article 24 of the UNCRC) and education (Article 28), statelessness remains a challenge for these children. The children remain troubled by the lack of, not only a national identity but also a personal identity therein limiting their enjoyment of a full existence as human beings. Universal human rights may be limited or entirely inaccessible to them due to the fact that they are asylum seekers, refugees or undocumented. It has been noted that a number of children within the refugee camp cannot obtain the recognition of the nationality of (one of) their parents. PROPOSED LEGISLATIVE AMENDMENTS In line with the international conventions such the aforementioned 1989 UNCRC and the 1990 ACRWC – which Zimbabwe is a signatory to – this paper recommends that the Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe incorporate the principle of the best interests of the child in all laws. In particular, those concerning nationality and citizenship legislation outside of the family law context. One way is by providing recognised long-stay refugees with durable solutions in Zimbabwe, specifically with reference to the issue of liminal socio-economic inclusion is the amendment of refugee laws to grant citizenship to long stay refugees. In this regard it could draw lessons from South Africa, which grants citizenship to refugees after 10 years of continuous stay in South Africa if they can demonstrate that they will otherwise remain refugees for an indefinite period of time. Such durable solutions for long stay refugees also assists long stay refugee in obtaining social integration, particularly vis-à-vis refugee children born within the Tongogara Refugee Camp. In South Africa, citizenship is conferred to every foreign child born in South Africa on his/her eighteenth birthday, provided that they have valid legal documents, which permit them to live in South Africa. This approach has been instrumental in curbing the state of protracted refugeeism in South Africa and is in line with the best interest of the child mantra (Willie & Mfubu, 2016). Protracted refugeeism denotes a situation in which refugees find themselves in a long-lasting and intractable state of limbo. It is often characterised by lack of access to basic socio-economic rights. Protracted and generational refugeeism extend refugee children’s sense of exclusion through a perpetual state of temporary permanence and legal limbo. The principle of the best interest of a child cannot be divorced from the need to finding durable solutions for children. ‘The best interests of a child [principle is] the avenue through which a durable solution is made and should not be discarded. Children should be provided with a secure, stable life throughout their childhood and beyond’ (Willie & Mfubu, 2016). The principle should be employed in practices and procedures of all state institutions in discharging their duties. It is essential that all children born in Zimbabwe, including refugee children, asylum seekers and undocumented migrant children have access to birth registration regardless of their parents’ citizenship status, country of origin or gender. Zimbabwe must furthermore strive to achieve universal birth registration for children as this right can impinge on integral rights such as education. In addition, the Zimbabwean Refugees Act ought to be amended to explicitly include a process of birth registration for both asylum seekers and refugees. For example, as with the existing procedures for non-citizen birth registration for the children of foreign nationals; that is: visitors and expatriates, procedures ought to be put in place to issue African Journal of Social Work, 9(1), 2019 69 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________