Gender-related Persecution Research Articles

Taking It Personally: Delimiting Gender-Based Refugee Claims Using the Complementary Protection Provision in Canada

Random violence and general criminal risk—decision makers evaluating refugee claims are characterizing violence against women in this manner. The reduction of gendered violence, leading to the denial of refugee claims, occurs under the covert operation of Canada’s consolidated refugee definition. Canada has received accolades for recognizing gender-related persecution. Since this recognition, Canada has consolidated its refugee definition, legislating a “complementary protection provision” in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Prior to 2002, risk assessments done just prior to the removal of persons asked whether persons would be returned to torture or cruel and unusual punishment. In 2002, this assessment was included in the refugee determination process. There has been little evaluation of this provision since then. This article examines the performative functions of Canada’s complementary protection and finds the provision delimits gender-related claims in three ways. First, it does not fill the gaps left by the enumerated grounds system. Second, the provision encourages the production of harmful discourse on violence against women. Finally, it encourages decision makers to conflate the separate analyses (enumerated grounds and the complementary protection schemes), erroneously allowing factors such as the universality of oppression or violence to erode the enumerated grounds regime.

Does ordinary injustice make extraordinary injustice possible? Gender, structural injustice, and the ethics of refugee determination

Our understanding of the impact of gender on refugee determination has evolved greatly over the last 60 years. Though many people initially believed that women could not be persecuted qua women, it is now frequently recognized that certain forms of gender-related persecution are sufficient to warrant asylum. Yet despite this conceptual progress, many states are still reluctant to consider certain forms of gender-related persecution to be sufficient to warrant asylum or refugee status. One reason for this continued bias is the lack of a framework with which to understand gender-related persecution. I argue that we ought to understand gender-related persecution as resulting from the intersection of individual or state persecution and structural injustice. Structural injustice can be understood as the kind of everyday injustice, harm, and violence that women experience that makes possible the more extraordinary kinds of violence that women are likely to claim as the basis of asylum. Understanding gender-related persecution within the context of structural injustice will, I argue, help us to see it as a legitimate form of persecution and thus allow more just outcomes for women refugees.

Mainstreaming gender in refugee protection

The issues of gender-related persecution and violence against women have been put onto the international agenda, largely thanks to lobbying by feminist NGOs and transnational networks. There is a question, however, of how successfully this agenda-setting has translated into effective policy-making and policies that will increase the protection of women who are victims of gender-related persecution. One of the problems with policies to support women refugees and asylum seekers lies in a failure of transmission of the goals of gender sensitivity through all the various bureaux and representatives of a large bureaucratic organization such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). For nearly twenty years, since the early 1990s, the UNHCR has identified ‘refugee women’ as a policy priority, and yet, despite this prioritization of concerns about women refugees and gender issues in the asylum and refugee process, it could be argued that little progress has been made in implementation of policies on refugee women. This article will examine the way in which the concept of gender has been adopted within the UNHCR and the processes that have been put in place to mainstream gender within refugee protection activities. How far has mainstreaming managed to move policies to protect women beyond a mere focus on ‘vulnerable’ groups, and to integrate a gendered understanding of the global processes that produce refugees, and of the protection needs of these refugees?

Human Rights by Accretion: Gender-Related Persecution and U.S. Refugee Policy

Human Rights by Accretion: Gender-Related Persecution and U.S. Refugee Policy

Examining Sexual Violence in the Military Within the Context of Eritrean Asylum Claims Presented in Norway

Discussion of rape by soldiers as a form of persecution has largely been directed towards the context of war or actual conflict. Nevertheless, there is a need for attention to be directed towards the phenomenon of rape within the military in the post-conflict period. This article discusses asylum claims presented in Norway by Eritrean female soldiers claiming risk of persecution in the form of sexual violence, rape, or torture within the military. First, presentation is made of the history of Eritrean women's participation in the war of independence and the ensuing political and legislative gains won at the end of the war against Ethiopia. Review of Eritrea's report and responses to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) reveal a state of backlash against women in the post-conflict period. Second, examination of how rape within the military and desertion may fall under the criteria of the definition of a refugee according the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees is pursued. Comparison is drawn to instances of rape of women soldiers in the US and Israel, as well as sexual violence by United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) peacekeepers, revealing common challenges affecting prevention and protection strategies. Third, a comparative review is conducted of evidentiary standards in order to highlight the importance of maintaining a flexible approach responsive to the special circumstances of sexual violence. The Norwegian practice indicated a tendency to provide protection for compassionate grounds or humanitarian protection, rather than asylum. This resulted in non-recognition of the legitimacy of claims based on gender related persecution as requiring legal protection under the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees.

Gender-Related Refugee Claims: Expanding the Scope of the Canadian Guidelines

In 1993 the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada adopted guidelines entitled ‘Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution’. The Guidelines represent a cutting edge approach and have helped to guarantee a refugee determination process for women refugees that is more sensitive to gender-related claims of asylum. However, the author demonstrates that the concept of gender-based persecution, as it is presently defined, makes it difficult for members of the Board to systematically evaluate all types of gender-related persecution, to which certain men and women are subjected. The author examines asylum claims based on sexual orientation and identity, as well as those based on persecution specifically inflicted upon men, and argues that the gender-specific analytical framework adopted by the Immigration and Refugee Board is relevant to these cases. The author concludes that change is needed in the form of a more clearly defined social constructionist interpretation of gender. Clearly, defining ‘gender’ as a socially constructed concept would reveal the gender-specific factors that interfere with the rights of certain men and would make more visible the links between gender and other causes of persecution, like sexual orientation.

The UNHCR 7 May 2002: Guidelines on International Protection: Gender-Related Persecution within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees

The UNHCR 7 May 2002: Guidelines on International Protection: Gender-Related Persecution within the context of Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Convention and/or its 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees

GENDERED HUMAN RIGHTS: THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY'S FAILED RESPONSE TO THE PERSECUTION OF WOMEN

Increasingly women's human rights are being violated as evidenced most recently in Afghanistan and Algeria. The persecution women face is often gender‐related. The international community has repeatedly failed to acknowledge that gender‐related persecution is as acute and as debilitating as other forms of persecution, i.e., ethnic, religious, political opinion. This failure to acknowledge gender‐related persecution has been detrimental to female refugees and has resulted in inconsistent care and protection for them. Today there are well more than 20 million refugees, the majority of whom are female. The gender‐related human rights abuses suffered by women, the failure of the international community to acknowledge this abuse, and the gendered nature of the care and protection female refugees receive, are the foci of this paper.

Gender-Related Persecution as a Basis for Refugee Status: The Emergence of an International Norm

In 1993, Canada was the first country to formally open its doors to refugees fleeing gender-related persecution. While the timing of Canada's move may have been motivated by domestic politics, it was also tied to an international process through which the human rights of women and gender-related persecution had become politically relevant issues. This article investigates the emergence of an international norm accepting gender- related persecution as a basis for refugee status. It begins with an overview of developments on the matter in other jurisdictions and reveals the role Canada played by taking a first step. The article also reveals the process through which domestic, transnational and international actors converged to put the issue of gender-related persecution on the international agenda.

2. IFRL Special Issue on Gender-Related Persecution

2. IFRL Special Issue on Gender-Related Persecution Get access International Journal of Refugee Law, Volume 9, Issue 2, April 1997, Page 277, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/9.2.277 Published: 01 April 1997

The Canadian Guidelines on Gender-Related Persecution: An Evaluation

The faces of refugees are overwhelmingly female: women and children represent over 80 per cent of the world's 27 million refugees and displaced people. This was the impetus behind much of the discussion of the rights of refugee women at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. In the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, States agreed to ‘consider recognizing as refugees those women whose claim to refugee status is based upon the well-founded fear of persecution… including persecution through sexual violence or other gender-related persecution’. Additionally, they pledged to ‘[s]upport and promote efforts by States toward the development of criteria and guidelines on responses to persecution specifically aimed at women, by sharing information on States’ initiatives to develop such criteria and guidelines and by monitoring to ensure their fair and consistent application'. The call for countries to adopt consistent standards for admission of women fleeing gender-related persecution was largely based upon the experience of Canada and, more recently, the United States in formulating guidelines for refugee decision-makers. Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) issued ‘Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution’ in 1993, with two goals: to heighten the sensitivity of IRB decision-makers to the unique problems women face seeking international protection, and to provide a method of analysis within which to evaluate a woman's claim to refugee status. They have provided a model for other countries, but should not be viewed as a finished work; indeed, they were expected to be revised as international and domestic women's human rights law changed, and a new version is expected in late 1996. This article briefly outlines the background to the adoption of the Guidelines, and the recognition within the IRB that the refugee experience is largely female. It describes the scope of the Guidelines, and the omissions that have become evident as they have been interpreted, such as the lack of discussion of the unique problems faced by women in proving that no ‘internal flight alternative’ exists. The article further discusses how the Guidelines can be strengthened by the incorporation of references to recent gender-related law, the extent to which States have committed themselves in the Platform for Action to the development of guidelines as a response to the plight of refugee women.

Making the Refugee Convention Gender Sensitive: The Canadian Guidelines

Human rights violations committed against women have become an increasingly high priority on the international agenda.1 Rape, “honour killings.”, bride-burning, genital mutilation, forced sterilisation, forced abortion, domestic violence are all acts of violence regularly committed against women. What makes women the target of such acts is primarily if not exclusively their sex. Membership of the female sex is what creates the risk. Women have been afforded minimal redress in international fora and this has been particularly true within the context of refugee determination. Women and children make up the majority of the world's refugee population2 yet, because of their comparative lack of mobility, the refugee jurisprudence which has evolved has been based primarily on the experiences of men. However, women often fear persecution for reasons different from men, and when they do fear persecution for the same reason as men they often experience the persecution differently. There is evidence that contemporary refugee law is becoming gender sensitive. In March 1993 the Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution were issued by the Chairperson of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board.3 The Guidelines were novel in that their promulgation made Canada the first country to recognise formally that cognisance should be given to claims by refugee applicants of alleged genderrelated persecution. This short article will identify the raison d'être of the Guidelines, articulate their principal characteristics and assess their impact both within Canada and beyond.

Gender-Related Persecution: An Analysis of Recent Trends

Gender-Related Persecution: An Analysis of Recent Trends

The IRB Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution

The IRB Guidelines on Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution Chantal Bernier Chantal Bernier *Special Advisor to the Chairperson, Immigration and Refugee Board, Canada; now Senior Advisor on Gender Equality, Department of Justice, Canada. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar International Journal of Refugee Law, Volume 9, Issue Special_Issue, October 1997, Pages 167–173, https://doi.org/10.1093/reflaw/9.Special_Issue.167 Published: 05 April 2016

Seeking Asylum on Gender Grounds

This article discusses whether the criteria and procedures which are currently being used in European states offer fair treatment and sufficient protection to women seeking asylum on the ground of a gender-related persecution. Under the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee must show a well-founded fear of persecution on at least one of five grounds: race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Gender is not covered. There are essentially three ways in which states can address the problem of gender specific threat to the security of women. The first option, which is to do nothing or very little about it, was chosen by European states although most of them are now slowly moving towards the next option. This is to agree on a liberal interpretation of existing criteria, in particular, ‘social group’. This second option is already applied in Canada. No state or court has so far addressed the question of amending the 1951 Convention in order to add gender as a ground of persecution on its own. Yet this third option presents practical advantages and, more importantly, it has also become a necessity in principle.

The Canadian Guidelines On Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution

A vast majority of refugee claimants who reach the boundaries of industrialized countries are men; there is a heightened awareness that women often fear persecution for different reasons than men do. Even when their fear is the same as mens they often experience persecution differently. In 1985 the Executive Committee of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) issued the Guidelines on the Protection of Refugee Women. UNHCR also adopted a resolution that acknowledges that women are vulnerable to a particular form of human rights abuse. This paper explores the development of the gender guidelines whose purpose is to offer substantive legal and procedural guidance in analyzing gender-related issues in refugee claims submitted by women. It also presents an overview of the guidelines as they relate to issues concerning public/private dichotomy and cultural relativism.

Introduction to the Immigration and Refugee Board Guidelines on Gender-Related Persecution

Introduction to the Immigration and Refugee Board Guidelines on Gender-Related Persecution