1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the exact number of stateless people globally is not known.1 However, the UN Refugee Agency estimates that there are many millions globally – of which approximately one third are children. The agency further states that “statelessness may occur for a variety of reasons, including discrimination against particular ethnic or religious groups or on the basis of gender; the emergence of new States and transfers between existing States; and conflict of nationality laws.” In Zimbabwe approximately 300,000 people are currently at risk of statelessness, according to the UNHCR. Lack of official data means that the exact number of people affected by statelessness is unknown. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from neighbouring countries who were brought in by colonial authorities to work on farms and mines around the country from Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia, and their descendants who settled or were born in Zimbabwe before independence in 1980 face barriers to acquiring citizenship in the country and have effectively been rendered stateless. In addition, generations of ethnic Ndebele people, and largely settled in the Matebeleland and Midlands provinces, whose families were killed or disappeared during the Gukurahundi massacres, in early to mid-1980’s, are also affected by statelessness. During Gukurahundi and its aftermath, many thousands died, lost family members and were forced to flee their homes in the affected areas in Matabeleland and the Midlands. Many inevitably lost their identity documents. 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. This report reveals how these population groups have been deprived for decades of their rights as citizens. Denied the documentation enabling them access to education, work, health care and other basic rights, hundreds of thousands of people have been rendered stateless, stripped of any legal status in the country where they have raised families and which they regard as home. The government’s failure over many years to remove the administrative obstacles to the enjoyment of these rights, particularly to descendants of migrants who migrated to Zimbabwe before independence and to victims of Gukurahundi and their descendants, has forced people into daily struggles to live freely. As a consequence, these two groups of the population have been pushed to the margins of society. The situation that many stateless Zimbabweans find themselves in 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 who was born in Zimbabwe to parents with a claim to citizenship of any SADC state, including Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia or South Africa, and is residing in Zimbabwe is a Zimbabwean citizen by birth. Although different groups have been affected by statelessness, including thousands of white commercial farmers, this report focuses on its impact on migrants and descendants of victims of Gukurahundi, both of them historically marginalized categories of people. Stateless people are restricted from participating in the economy, accessing jobs, opening a bank account, buying a house, opening their own businesses or entering into legally recognizable marriages or family unions. They are also poor, marginalized, discriminated against, disenfranchised and politically excluded. 1 Statelessness around the world https://www.unhcr.org/statelessness-around-the-world.html WE ARE LIKE “STRAY ANIMALS” THOUSANDS LIVING ON THE MARGINS DUE TO STATELESSNESS IN ZIMBABWE Amnesty International 5