Zimbabwe is starting to count the number of stateless people in the country.
According to the 1954 UN Convention, statelessness refers to people not recognised as a citizen by any country.
A ministry of foreign affairs official, Stewart Nyakotyo, said Zimbabwe was committed to documenting people.
"We will then develop a national action plan to end statelessness by 2024."
The government hopes to cut red tape in people's efforts to obtain identity documents, birth certificates, passports, citizenship and death certificates.
Nyakotyo said there were also challenges to deal with the registration of children of the estimated 3-million Zimbabwe nationals in the diaspora.
"Most of them are living illegally as some jumped the border, have no proper documentation or have overstayed, which affects the issuing of identity documents, particularly to their children."
Senate deputy president Mike Nyambuya said farm workers of foreign descent, especially women and their children, were the most likely to be undocumented.
"An estimated 30% of our 2-million farm workers and their families are believed to be of foreign descent. Many were born in Zimbabwe but lack birth certificates or national identity cards," Nyambuya said.
He said the crisis had been worsened by the fact that most of the foreign farm workers have lost ties with their countries of origin.
A task force on the study of statelessness, spearheaded by the registrar-general's office with support from the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, has been established.
The acting UNCHR country representative, Shana Kaninda, said statelessness could have a terrible impact on the lives of individuals who did not have identity documents.
An estimated 30% of our 2-million farm workers and their families are believed to be of foreign descent
— Senate deputy president Mike Nyambuya
Kaninda said an estimated 10-million stateless people across the world were often subjected to human rights violations. They might be detained, denied re-entry or expelled from the country where they lived because they did not possess any documentation.
A woman who said she was born in eastern Zimbabwe (Nyanga), after her parents fled from the Mozambican civil war, is one of the suspected thousands who is considered stateless.
"My parents struggled to get identity documents here [Zimbabwe] and this affected me and my siblings. We all failed to go to school because we didn't have birth certificates. My parents later went back to Mozambique but I remained behind because I got married.
"I now have two children and still don't have documents. My husband tried to assist me but was told that I need my parents' particulars. He also tried to get birth certificates for our children but was told to bring my particulars.
"It's now a challenge because my child is supposed to start school next year."
Task force chair Timothy Mumba said undocumented people were denied access to education, health care and formal employment, all of which required identity documents.
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