ABSTRACT

Questions of gender have strongly influenced the development of international refugee law over the last few decades. This volume assesses the progress toward appropriate recognition of gender-related persecution in refugee law. It documents the advances made following intense advocacy around the world in the 1990s, and evaluates the extent to which gender has been successfully integrated into refugee law.

Evaluating the research and advocacy agendas for gender in refugee law ten years beyond the 2002 UNHCR Gender Guidelines, the book investigates the current status of gender in refugee law. It examines gender-related persecution claims of both women and men, including those based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and explores how the development of an anti-refugee agenda in many Western states exponentially increases vulnerability for refugees making gendered claims. The volume includes contributions from scholars and members of the advocacy community that allow the book to examine conceptual and doctrinal themes arising at the intersection of gender and refugee law, and specific case studies across major Western refugee-receiving nations. The book will be of great interest and value to researchers and students of asylum and immigration law, international politics, and gender studies.

chapter |16 pages

Introduction

Gender in refugee law – from the margins to the centre

chapter 1|29 pages

Why we are not there yet 1

The particular challenge of ‘particular social group'

chapter 2|27 pages

Legal change from the bottom up 1

The development of gender asylum jurisprudence in the United States

chapter 3|25 pages

A tale of two women

The claims for asylum of Fauziya Kassindja, who fled FGC, and Rody Alvarado, a survivor of partner (domestic) violence

chapter 4|18 pages

Falling at each hurdle

Assessing the credibility of women's asylum claims in Europe

chapter 6|19 pages

Lesbians and United Kingdom asylum law

Evidence and existence

chapter 8|22 pages

Training and strategic litigation

Tools for enhanced protection of gender-related asylum applicants in Europe

chapter 10|23 pages

Women fleeing armed conflict

Seeking international protection in the United Kingdom

chapter 12|24 pages

Evaluating Canada's approach to gender-related persecution

Revisiting and re-embracing ‘refugee women and the imperative of categories'