A coding tool and abuse data for female asylum seekers.

Gender-based violence experienced by women seeking asylum in the United State: A lifetime of multiple traumas inflicted by multiple perpetrators

Until the 1970s, violence against women (VAW) was framed as a private issue and remained conspicuously absent from the public sphere and policy debates. Today, owing to decades of protest by women’s movements in different parts of the world, VAW—and gender-based violence (GBV) directed against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and other non-heteronormative (LGBTQI+) individuals—is widely recognized as a serious human rights violation and a health problem that disproportionately affects women. Patriarchy, which subjects women and girls to violence because of their sex, is the root cause of VAW and GBV. As the 1993 UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW) put it: [VAW] is a manifestation of historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of the full advancement of women … [VAW] is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men. Feminists have always challenged the private–public dichotomy, which serves to depoliticize the unequal power relations within the home, where VAW often takes place. The terms used, as discussed by Ertürk (2016), to refer to the problem are instructive of the shifts in how VAW has been framed. The First World Conference on Women in Mexico City in 1975 made reference to “unity of the family and prevention of intra-family conflicts.” Five years later, at the Copenhagen Conference, a resolution on “battered women and the family” was adopted, and the concluding document made reference to “domestic violence.”

In the face of women’s disproportionate experience of violence and the growing scholarly literature and advocacy on this issue, there is no international treaty recognising violence against women (VAW) as a human rights violation in and of itself. The Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) does not include a definition of gender-based violence, violence against women or even domestic violence. Many soft law documents address VAW, including the CEDAW committee’s general recommendations. However, even though soft laws are persuasive in developing norms, their non-binding character effectively means that States cannot be held responsible for violations. Currently, to accommodate VAW within various treaties, certain ‘jurisdictional gymnastics’ must be done. This article argues that a critical re-characterization is necessary. The reality of women’s lives in many parts of the world necessitates an effective international legal framework that explicitly defines VAW, in all its forms, as a human rights violation.

Violence Against Women: PTSD in Female Victims of the Former Sex Workers in Nana Sukhumvit Area, Thailand

BackgroundThe U.S. immigration system mandates that persons seeking asylum prove their persecution claim is credible and their fear of returning home is well-founded. However, this population represents a highly trauma-exposed group, with neuropsychiatric symptoms consequent to prior torture or maltreatment that may interfere with cognitive function and their ability to recall their trauma. These memory lapses may be incorrectly perceived by asylum adjudicators as indicators of dishonesty and jeopardize the person’s credibility and asylum claim. Our retrospective mixed methods study seeks to present associations between trauma and memory loss in a sample of persons seeking asylum to the U.S. and describe how memory impairments manifest in this trauma-exposed population.MethodsWe randomly selected 200 medico-legal affidavits from 1346 affidavits collected in the past 30 years, as part of the Physicians for Human Rights Asylum Network connecting clinicians with legal providers for medical and/or psychiatric affidavits of U.S. asylum seekers and persons seeking other forms of humanitarian relief (hereafter, “asylum seekers”). Data was extracted from these affidavits using a coding manual informed by the Istanbul Protocol, the global standard for torture documentation. Seven affidavits were excluded due to missing age. We used multiple logistic regression to assess the association of memory loss with neuropsychiatric diagnoses: head trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. We supplemented these findings with a qualitative content analysis of the affidavits documenting memory loss. Memory loss presented among the asylum seekers’ affidavits in several ways: memory gaps of the traumatic event; challenges with presenting a clear chronology of the trauma, avoidance of traumatic memories, and persistent short-term memory loss interfering with daily activity.ResultsA majority of the sample received a neuropsychiatric diagnosis: 69% (n = 132) of asylum-seekers received a diagnosis of PTSD and 55% (n = 106) of depression. Head trauma was reported among 30% (n = 58) of affidavits. Further, 68% (n = 131) reported being subject to physical violence and 20% (n = 39) were documented as being at risk of suicide. Memory loss was documented among 21% (n = 40) asylum-seekers. In adjusted models, both PTSD and depression, but not head trauma, were associated with memory loss (p<0.05).ConclusionStakeholders in the asylum process, spanning the medical, legal and immigration enforcement sectors, must be aware of the interplay of trauma and memory loss and how they might impact immigration proceedings for this vulnerable population.

The safeguarding of human rights remains highly problematic, despite the proliferation of human rights instruments and the many actions taken by a variety of actors, such as governmental and non-governmental organizations, (individual) states and the international community over the past decades. Human rights violations do still occur on a large scale and injustice remains rampant. Central to this problem appears to be that social, economic, cultural and political structures in societies provide for denialist defense mechanisms. Such deeply embedded denialism causes and/or facilitates human rights violations, because the true nature of the problems involved remains fully or partly unacknowledged and as a result appropriate action remains absent. In order to safeguard the effectuation of human rights it is thus pertinent to acknowledge and address this problem of denialism and develop strategies to move beyond it. To address the above mentioned problem, an international conference was organised on the theme of Denialism and Human Rights by the Maastricht Centre for Human Rights in 2015, which brought together scholars, practitioners, and students from various disciplines and fields to unearth and address denialism in the context of their own particular area of research. The present volume contains a unique collection of papers that were presented during the conference. The content of the papers ranges from more general reflections on the theme of denialism and human rights to papers that cover more specific areas of research that are relevant in terms of denialism such as genocide, children’s rights, the role of (inter)national organisations, penology and social, economic and cultural rights.

The Inter-American Human Rights System has broken new ground in the field of violence against women (VAW) by delineating the concept of femicide, the principle of due diligence, clarifying the obligations of the States regarding violence and a adopting a gender perspective on reparations. In recent years, ‘intersectionality’, the study of the interconnections of race, ethnicity, religion, age, class, sexual orientation and other categories of difference in relation to inequality, has been promoted in human rights law for tackling VAW. This approach poses new challenges for the interpretation of cases. This article examines to what extent the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission have incorporated an intersectional view of violence against women into cases of femicide and discusses the potential of doing so in the future.

UNHCR reports that about 82.4 million individuals were forcibly displaced as they attempted to avoid persecution, conflict, or human rights violations in their home countries. In addition to traumatic experiences, refugees encounter stressors such as low income, reduced social support, and language barriers. This qualitative study aimed to explore the impact of pre-migration trauma and political detainment on mental health outcomes and living conditions. A total of eight interviewees participated in video conferencing interviews. A non-probability convenience sampling using the snowballing technique was utilized to identify participants. Data were analyzed using an inductive approach for thematic analysis. The software Dedoose was used to come up with codes and the research team refined the codes into distinct themes. Four themes emerged from data analysis: extrinsic barriers, symptoms of psychological distress, coping and help-seeking behaviors, and interpersonal relationships. Results of the study show the intensity and difficulty of experiences faced by participants and the toll it takes on their mental state and family life. The results highlight a lack of resources available to refugees in the United States and a suggestion to further the research efforts for this understudied population.

Both geographic and normative constraints restrict access to surrogate international human rights protection for those seeking a haven from serious human rights abuses. Primary among territorial restrictions has been the fall-out from the US Supreme Court's decision in Sale v. Haitian Council Centers in which the court explicitly ruled that nothing in US statutory law, or in the 1951 Convention on Refugees or its 1967 Protocol, precluded the interdiction of Haitian refugees in international waters and their return to the country of origin without an effective interview on their protection clams. This ruling is in transparent contradiction to the general international law norm of non-refoulement according to modern scholarship and emerging case law. This paper concludes that Sale should be overturned by statute as should related pre-screening practices. A new standard of “jurisdiction” should be adopted which does not depend on territorial access to a signatory state but on whether the state is exercising power in fact. Similar concerns exist with respect to safe third country agreements which often offend the international customary right of the asylum seeker to choose where his or her claim will be filed. This paper argues that the right of choice should be recognized and onward travel and admission to the country of destination allowed. This result is especially called for where return of the alien by the country of first contact raises serious concerns under the law of non-refoulement. Imbalances noted in this paper include those generated by the new terrorism related grounds of inadmissibility in the United States and the summary denial of children's asylum claims flowing from gang violence. Other questions are raised in this paper concerning work authorization and detention of asylum seekers. Access to an employment authorization document for those filing colorable claims should be recognized by statute to render US practice consistent with that of most other states. Release from detention, on the other hand, for asylum seekers has now been broadly recognized by the US Department of Homeland Security where the asylum seeker's identity can be ascertained and the claim is non-frivolous in nature. This approach is largely consistent with international law, although there have been unnecessary delays in implementing it. On the substantive law, the international customary norm of non-refoulment has been expanded considerably through the development of opinio juris by scholars and the practice of states. This paper traces efforts in Europe to develop a law of temporary refuge for those fleeing civil war situations characterized by humanitarian law violations. Similarly, case law under the European Convention of Human Rights has now come to focus on the harm the claimant would suffer as the result of conditions in the country of origin without identifying an explicit agent of serious harm. Related to these developments has been the notion of complementary protection under which relief can be conferred where the alien would suffer serious harm upon return to the home state but not for a Convention reason. These approaches have now received approval in the European Union Asylum Qualification Directive so that international protection may now be conferred either because the alien would suffer serious harm on account of the intensity of human rights violations taking place in the country of origin, or those conditions, taken in conjunction with the claimant's personal situation, support a finding that the claimant would be impacted. This paper argues that this latter standard has now been made a part of the customary norm of non-refoulement and that it should be recognized by statute as a basis for non-return and coupled with status where the new standard can be met. Such a measure would help restore the nation's commitment to human rights and humanitarian concerns.

More than ten million people are stateless today. In a world of nation states, they live on the margins without membership in any state, and, as a consequence, have few enforceable legal rights. Stateless individuals face gaps in protection and in many cases experience persecution that falls within the refugee paradigm. However, US asylum policy does not adequately address the myriad legal problems that confront the stateless, who have been largely invisible in the jurisprudence and academic literature. Two federal appellate court opinions shed new light on the intersection of statelessness and refugee law in the United States. In 2010, Haile v. Holder examined the asylum claim of a young man rendered stateless when the Ethiopian government issued a decree denationalizing ethnic Eritreans. In a 2011 case, Stserba v. Holder, the court reviewed an asylum claim by a woman who became stateless when the Soviet Union collapsed, and the successor state of Estonia enacted citizenship legislation that included a language requirement. This article analyzes the opinions which suggest that state action depriving residents of citizenship on ethnic and other protected grounds warrants a presumption of persecution. This article also identifies additional circumstances in which stateless individuals may have a well-founded fear of persecution that qualifies them for asylum in the United States. In addition, this article notes that although far too many stateless individuals face persecution, not all of them do. Stateless persons who do not fear persecution, however, are also vulnerable. The absence of state protection condemns them to a precarious existence and their inability to obtain passports or other travel documents often prevents their return to states where they formerly resided. The refusal of most states to admit noncitizens frequently keeps stateless persons in limbo. Stateless individuals stranded in the United States live under a supervisory patchwork that serves neither their interests nor those of the United States. Rather than relying on incremental case law developments and inapposite regulatory schemes, the US State Department and the Department of Homeland Security should convene a task force to report on the size and composition of the stateless population in the United States and the need to develop legislative, regulatory, and other policy guidance concerning statelessness claims.

IntroductionSince the mid-1990s, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) economic collapse and subsequent food crisis have caused numerous North Koreans to starve to death. Moreover, such events have prompted thousands to seek refuge in the Republic of China (PRC) and beyond. An estimated 600,000 to over 2 million North Koreans were killed by the famine.2 It is also estimated that approximately 100,000-300,000 North Koreans moved to China.3 Many North Korean escapees in northeast China have lived in hiding from crackdowns and forced repatriations by the PRC and neighboring countries, vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. The food crisis has resulted in an explosive increase in the migration of North Koreans to northeast China, other neighboring Asian countries, and, thereafter, the Republic of Korea (ROK). As of December 2012, North Koreans who arrived in South Korea numbered 24,614.4 Furthermore, one in three North Korean escapees is heading to countries other than South Korea, and many escapees want to defect to Western countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom.5 While North Koreans in South Korea have been granted ROK citizenship, many North Korean asylum seekers staying in other countries have not been under legal or humanitarian protection. Due to political, diplomatic and legal problems in the international and domestic contexts, the North Korean diaspora has maintained an illegal or unstable status as border-crossing people or trespassers.Until now, existing studies have researched the migration and human rights violations of North Koreans in terms of status under international law. Are North Korean escapees political refugees, economic migrants or simply border-crossing people? This has been one of the critical questions regarding the North Korean diaspora. While North Korean escapees are often referred to as refugees in mass media, in many cases, especially in Asian transit countries, they have not received protection under international law as well as from the concerned countries' domestic law. Today, most of the related Northeast and Southeast Asian countries rarely guarantee status to North Koreans, and the U.S. and European countries also enforce a very selective policy of admitting North Koreans. In this regard, Western and South Korean civic organizations of North Korean human rights argue that those defecting due to human rights violations should undeniably be granted status.The number of refugees of concern to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) stood at 10.5 million at the beginning of 2011. The Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) in 1951 and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Protocol) in 1967 provide a framework for the legal protection of a large number of displaced people. The Refugee Convention defines refugee as someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion. 6 According to UNHCR, as of January 2013, the total population of concern in the case of North Koreans is 1542, and among this, the number of refugees is 1052 and that of asylum seekers is 490.7 Here, the dilemma is whether to use the term refugee at all in referring to North Koreans who depart their country of origin illegally. This is because a majority of North Koreans leave the DPRK primarily in search of food, not for fear of persecution. However, North Koreans' defections due to food shortages and forced repatriations in many cases lead to human rights violations, such as a total denial of political, civil and religious rights as well as severe physical abuse in DPRK prison camps.8 Therefore, UNHCR claims that North Koreans, especially those living in China and other Asian transit countries, should be considered as refugees sur place because they face the threat of persecution upon returning to North Korea even though they leave their country in search of food. …

This chapter deals with the importance of addressing economic violence as a fundamental form of political violence. Drawing on linkages between social policy approaches, human rights and development, Jurasz and Szablewska argue that achieving gender equality requires responding to unequal power relations at the institutional and societal levels, and thus greater attention needs to be paid to understanding and combatting economic violence against women. In this context, gender equality (de jure and de facto) is considered crucial to the achievement of socio-economic transformations reaching beyond judicial address of a violent past. Taking Cambodia as a case study, Jurasz and Szablewska find a greater promotion of women's economic rights critical to the achievement of transformative gender equality, facilitating their empowerment in transitional societies. Therefore, Jurasz and Szablewska discuss a rights-based social policy approach towards combatting violence against women (VAW), with particular focus on providing transformative change through promoting women's agency and securing women's economic rights.

Violence against women (VAW) remains a critical public health and human rights concern, affecting women's physical, mental, and social well-being in both family and workplace settings. This study examines the prevalence and patterns of domestic violence and workplace harassment and their impact on women's health in urban areas of Trichy District, Tamil Nadu. Using a cross-sectional mixed-methods approach, data were collected from 320 women aged 18–55 years through surveys and interviews. The findings reveal that nearly half of the respondents experienced domestic violence, primarily emotional, verbal, economic, physical, and sexual abuse, largely perpetrated by intimate partners and linked to substance use. Workplace harassment affected over one-third of working women, with weak reporting mechanisms and limited institutional support. The study highlights significant health consequences, underreporting due to stigma and dependence, and the need for integrated legal, health, and empowerment-based interventions to address violence against women effectively.

Ending violence against women and promoting gender equality have long been on the agenda of Pakistani women and human rights activists. In Pakistan and many other developing countries, initiatives that engage with men from a profeminist framework is a relatively new concept, and more or less in sync with the shifting trend of the international development field, which has moved away from a Women in Development (WID) approach to Gender and Development (GAD) (Lang 2003, 2; Flood 2004, 43-44). In summary, GAD focuses on institutional changes and the examination of gender roles and norms in relation to social divisions, as well as gender main-streaming in institutions, and a greater focus on men's role in contributing toward gender equality.1 In this context, the focus on engaging with men and boys to end violence against women (VAW) is becoming more readily accepted by international donors and partner organizations.

The United States presents a fascinating contrast to the other countries analyzed in this book. It features many factors associated with the successful utilization of constitutionalized human rights law on behalf of refugees: an independent judiciary, a robust cohort of lawyers dedicated to upholding the rights of refugees, a reputation (at least until the Trump Administration) for providing protection to refugees fleeing persecution elsewhere, and a population that is—generally speaking—sympathetic to their plight. What it lacks is a Constitution containing a plethora of human rights provisions applicable to refugees and asylum-seekers. In addition, the U.S. Constitution does not incorporate or reference human rights treaties that the United States has signed, ratified, or otherwise acceded to. As a result, when lawyers representing refugees in the United States invoke the U.S. Constitution to protect their clients, they rely almost exclusively on the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. This chapter demonstrates that the process for greater human rights protections for refugees is not linear. While U.S. lawyers have certainly helped to establish important constitutional rights for non-citizens over the years, an increasingly conservative judiciary and negative depictions of non-citizens in public discourse have reversed or limited those gains. U.S. lawyers, like their counterparts in the other countries featured in this book, have adapted their strategies accordingly, knowing that the path toward greater rights protections for refugees is never straightforward. They also recognize the importance of controlling the public narrative about non-citizens, which has become increasingly acerbic in recent years.