By 
By Hellen Mutizamhepo
Growing up in the streets of Harare where his parents had no actual place to call home was the normal life for Tapiwa Maridze.
Born in 2002 at the National Railways Zimbabwe complex in Harare where his parents were squatting along the Mukuvisi River with no physical address, Maridze is now an orphan following the death of his family.
He has no one else to turn to as his rural home remains a myth to him.
What makes his plight worse is that there is no one with the history of how his parents ended up as squatters neither does anyone know their origins.
He was left without acquiring the basic national identification.
As a Zimbabwean citizen, Maridze is looking forward to exercise his right to participate in the forthcoming 2023 harmonised elections, but the dream of being an active Citizen is far from reality as he doesn’t have anything to show as identification.
“I was born from the streets, my parents died here in the streets and they left me with no identification.
“They couldn’t obtain me a birth certificate because I wasn’t born at proper hospital or clinic, I don’t know how I can obtain a birth certificate because I really want to have an Identification card so that I participate in the forthcoming elections,” Maridze told this publication.
Maridze is not formally employed and survives from begging in the streets of Harare.
He has a plea to the authorities.
“My plea is very simple; we need to be included in the electoral process. The government has to do something about this,” he pleads.
Maridze will be happy to obtain identification and take part in all activities that require the special documentation.
Thousands of Zimbabweans have been struggling to access identification documents, including national IDs, in recent months due to a shortage of production consumables.
Over the weekend Ordinary and Advanced level candidates writing exams this year thronged various registry offices throughout the country hoping to obtain identity cards.
In places such as Harare, touts took advantage of the situation and milked the desperate learners of amounts between US$25-US$30 simply for jumping the queue.
Above all this, the registry offices were overwhelmed with crowds, a situation that could have triggered the spread of the dreaded Covid-19 pandemic.
Government last minute calls to call off the exercise and many remain without the precious documents.
What will be done to avert this identity crisis in Zimbabwe? Authorities need to act now before the registration backlog backfires.
Identification is critical and should be availed to every citizen according to the country’s statutes.
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