Women and gender in asylum and refugee law and policy

The system of international laws and conventions which offers protection to asylum seekers and refugees supposedly offers protection to all on a gender-neutral basis. Many researchers and activists, however, have pointed to the fact that these laws and conventions were drafted on the basis of the situation of male refugees, ignoring the specific forms of violence and persecution experienced by women. And that, moreover, their application is often undermined by deeply gendered practices which fail to offer protection to women because their persecution is not recognised as such. These interpretations of refugee law through the bias of the experiences of male refugees and asylum applicants and their activities has both reflected and reinforced existing gender biases within states. The continuing gendered division of labour within most societies, as well as an underlying assumption of a ‘public-private’ division, undermines the gender neutrality of refugee law and practice by creating situations in which women’s experience of political activity or of persecution is not seen as relevant to the law. This means that issues such as the threat of forced marriage, for example, are often not considered seriously as grounds for granting asylum or may be assigned to ‘cultural differences’ which are part of the order of things. Another consequence of this public-private division is that forms of persecution related to women’s ‘private’ behaviour, for example their refusal to adhere to certain dress codes, or to violence that takes place within the ‘private’ sphere of the family, such as violence committed by a husband, father or another family member, may not be recognised as grounds for granting refugee status.