Ana gives birth at the local hospital and everything goes well. The only problem is with the paperwork – her file is not on the computer - but this is deemed to be a temporary data loss probably caused by a software glitch, certainly nothing to worry about.
Within a few days, however, Ana is entangled in a web of bureaucracy of Kafkaesque proportions: not being in the computer system means no social security, no permanent address and no baby. She is brutally forced to leave a newborn girl alone at the hospital without the right to visit her until everything is sorted out. All of a sudden, Ana is a foreigner, even though she has lived in Slovenia all her life. Legally, she doesn’t exist, so her child is an orphan. And orphans are put up for adoption.
On 26 February 1992, the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Slovenia erased 25,671 of its own nationals. The majority of those are still unable to regain their legal status.