Marginalised communities living in Bwabwata National Park say they are finding it difficult to bury their dead, largely due to bureaucratic processes.
Even though they receive burial service assistance from the government, they say the requirement process involves a number of resources they do not have.
The Khwe community resides in Bwabwata National Park, and many are unemployed, surviving on government social programmes.
When a community member dies, the government has a burial service assistance programme in place, allowing for a dignified burial.
But there are requirements to be met.
These are three quotations from different undertakers, a certified copy of the death certificate and removal, a certified copy of the national document, a sworn declaration from the police from an immediate family member or guardian, and a sworn declaration that the deceased was a member of a marginalised community.
They also need to provide a certified copy of the ID of the family member who made the declaration, a letter from the traditional authority, a letter from the constituency councillor, and another declaration from family members.
But the Khwe say all these documents require them to travel outside the park with the money they do not have.
A number of them are stateless. They do not have their own traditional authority, making it sometimes difficult to acquire supporting letters. They say the cumbersome process ends up being painful for loved ones.
They say the situation is even worse when a loved one dies at home.
The Deputy Director of Marginalised Communities in the Ministry of Gender Equality, Rebekka Namwandi, says the set requirements are a standing rule.
"We do understand the predicament that the families are facing as well as the poverty situation that they are in, but we are also really under strict procurement procedures. We need to adhere to them, and we need to satisfy them to make sure that we don't attract audit queries."
Namwandi says the requirements are also meant to eliminate chance-takers.
"There are certain community members who are not indeed from marginalised communities who have tried to use those chances to enter into the programme, whether it's to send the children to school, to pay their tuition fees at a tertiary institution, or even just for burial purposes or feeding."
The ministry says it is currently in the process of coming up with mechanisms that will assist in relieving some of the pressure.
"We will ensure that should a deceased person pass on at home and not in the hospital, that body can also be transported from home to the hospital because the current process is not really nice because, in most cases, our staff members are also picking up bodies and they are not psychologically prepared for that."
They are also looking at ways to directly deal with undertakers in an effort to make the entire process a little shorter.