Central American women fleeing domestic violence deserve refugee status
January 16, 2019 4:54PM EST
Refugee advocates had a rare win when a social media campaign and huge media spotlight convinced Thailand not to return a young Saudi woman, Rahaf Mohammed Al-Qanun, to her allegedly abusive family. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, was able to intervene and recognize her as a refugee and Canada agreed to resettle her. She arrived in Toronto on Saturday.
I can’t help but wonder, though, what might have happened had she sought refuge at the U.S.-Mexico border instead of the Bangkok airport. Do Americans sympathetic to her plight see any connection with the women fleeing abusive spouses and parents in Central America?
Last June, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reviewed for himself a case before the Board of Immigration Appeals and reversed its grant of asylum to a Salvadoran woman who had survived nearly 15 years of horrific abuse by her husband, including numerous rapes and beatings. To reject her claim, he overruled the appeals board precedent that had recognized “married women in Guatemala who are unable to leave their relationship” as members of a social group that could qualify for asylum. “Generally,” his decision said, “claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence perpetrated by non-governmental actors will not qualify for asylum.”
It is true that the situation for women and girls in Saudi Arabia is unique in many respects, including its guardianship system, which requires women to have a male guardian to approve critical decisions in their lives such as traveling outside the country or getting married. But it is sadly not uncommon for women and girls in many other places to be trapped in abusive relationships even without such regulations.
More:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/01/16/central-american-women-fleeing-domestic-violence-deserve-refugee-status
