Papers, please

摘要

BOTSHIWE DUBE gave birth to all seven of her children at her home. This was not because she wanted to. Nor was it because there was no hospital in Tsholotsho, her home town in Zimbabwe. It was because she is stateless. Without papers proving she is Zimbabwean, she cannot gain admission to a hospital. Ms Dube lost her identification documents in 1983. At the time, the army was carrying out massacres of her ethnic group, the Ndebele, some of whom were deemed to have rebelled against the regime of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's late despot. Perhaps 20,000 Ndebele were murdered. Many lost their papers when soldiers burned their houses down.