Abstract
This article investigates the extent to which women are de jure and de facto discriminated against in the asylum application procedure as governed by international refugee law. It will be proven that, in the adjudication of an applicant’s ‘well-founded fear’, female asylum seekers are exposed to sexist bias in both the subjective and objective components of the application procedure. The subsequent analysis of the current framework of asylum law will reveal its insufficient protection of procedural rights for female asylum seekers.
Introduction
Women are, on a global scale, forced to flee their countries of origin due to persecution specific to their gender. These patterns of discrimination permeate the process of displacement in many forms. Female asylum seekers flee from, and into, legal systems ill-suited to protect them from harm. It is not an exaggeration to say that the conditions women face in the asylum application process perpetuate the same (or similar) abuses from which these women flee.1 The ignorance of the uniquely female experience substantially weakens the de facto enjoyment of the rights owed to refugee women.2 The law does not include enough safeguards to ensure the effective exercise of procedural rights, with the adjudication of both the subjective and objective aspects of the application for international protection substantially obstructing women’s right to asylum. The dependence on ‘coherent’ testimony in the assessment of ‘credibility’ (the ‘subjective aspect’) and the ‘objective’ evidence of gender-based persecution in the country of origin allow the perpetuation of a bias that substantially disadvantages women. In this sense, the procedural rights of equal treatment and non-discrimination are significantly violated. The relevance of this analysis is substantiated by the fact that procedural discrimination of women does not only apply to the claims for international protection based on gendered persecution. Instead, even women applying for reasons of political, religious or racial persecution are still systematically and arbitrarily disbelieved solely because they are women.3 The temporal relevance of this issue is not to be understated. The European Commission’s ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ attempts to establish a common procedure for international protection in the European Union (EU) (hence repealing Directive 2013/32/EU).4 The new regulations would place emphasis on ‘simpler… [and] shorter procedures’ for a ‘more efficient use of resources’.5 These amendments, which expedite the asylum procedure, will surely undermine the procedural fairness that already affords minimal protection to women. With less time awarded to individual procedures and a more streamlined approach, the New Pact is likely to result in the continued violation of women’s rights to asylum, procedural fairness and non-discrimination unless it explicitly (and appropriately) addresses the female struggle.To demonstrate the discriminatory nature of the asylum application process, this article will begin by describing the phenomenon of gender-related persecution and its legal contours. Subsequently, the procedure as stipulated by different legal instruments will be described.6 However, the bulk of this analysis will be dedicated to examining how these laws de facto lead to the violation of displaced women’s rights to asylum, non-discrimination and procedural fairness. Possibilities for reform and remedy are briefly discussed after the legal analysis.
Legal Framework
To be recognised as a refugee, the asylum seeker must prove to a ‘reasonable degree of likelihood’7 that she has a well-founded fear of persecution for a reason stipulated in the 1951 Refugee Convention.8 Asylum adjudications are civil procedures, and hence the burden of proof lies with the applicant.9 Firstly, it is important to note that gender-related persecution is not explicitly mentioned within the definition of a ‘refugee’ in Article 1A(2) of the Refugee Convention, which only refers to persecution for ‘reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’.10 It was only in 1985 that the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner recognised that gender-related persecution may engage the Refugee Convention as part of membership of a particular social group, though this is left to the State’s discretion in the exercise of their sovereignty.11 The lack of mention of ‘gender’ in the statute proves the ignorance of the uniquely female struggle in international refugee law. This exclusion de facto limits the definition of persecution to acts occurring in the public sphere or at the hands of public actors. This is problematic because violence against women occurs mostly within the private sphere.12 That being said, the personal is political: persecution occurring within the private sphere is part of a larger pattern of subversion and injustice, especially when the State does not provide adequate safeguards for protection.13 ‘Private’ affairs like domestic violence, for example, become persecution when they constitute a form of ‘State-sanctioned’ or ‘State-tolerated’ oppression.14 EU law outlines the actors capable of perpetrating persecution or serious harm, and limits this to ‘the State’ or ‘parties… controlling the State’.15 Harm at the hands of ‘non-State actors’ can additionally constitute an adequate ground for international protection, but only if it can be demonstrated that the State is unable or unwilling to provide protection against persecution.16 This places another evidentiary burden on the applicant to prove State incompetence or unwillingness, which disproportionately affects women as their persecution is most often perpetrated by non-State actors, such as family members, spouses, neighbours, and other members of the community.17 Not only must the female asylum seeker prove harm or threat of harm, but also the unwillingness or inability of the State to protect her from the relevant harm.18 This requires exhaustion of all possible domestic remedies, which demands that the asylum seeker undertake humiliating or even dangerous activities to prove that international protection is her only recourse. For example, in Opuz, the Turkish government argued that the applicant had failed to exhaust all domestic remedies because she had retracted her statements to the police about her husband running her over with his car and stabbing her seven times, even though her husband had pressured her to drop her complaint.19 The cause and effect of this legal framework is an insufficient protection of women within the asylum application procedure. The acts of persecution that give rise to international protection are those that constitute sufficiently serious violations of basic human rights (by nature or repetition), which may present themselves in the form of: (i) physical, mental and sexual violence, (ii) legal measures that de jure or de facto discriminate, (iii) disproportionate or discriminatory prosecution or punishment (or denial of judicial redress therefore).20 EU law mentions ‘acts of a gender-specific nature’, but this does not actually expand protection for women because it must be built upon the acts of persecution in the rest of Article 9.21 In the Introduction, this article noted that certain aspects of the asylum application procedure resemble the discriminatory practices from which female refugees flee and additionally constitute violations of human rights obligations. An interesting facet of analysis would be to investigate to what extent the asylum adjudication process violates these rights by employing legal measures that de facto discriminate. Whether the violation is sufficiently serious (by nature or repetition) to amount to an act of persecution giving rise to international protection is questionable and, at least for the victim in question, inconsequential. If a person’s rights are violated in the application procedure to the extent that it constitutes persecution, the individual would have to apply through the same discriminatory process for protection from the aforementioned violation. The safeguards implemented to remedy internal discrimination, to that end, are thus inadequate.
Subjective Element
This lack or total absence of documentary evidence results in the applicant’s testimony often being the only evidence considered in the ‘subjective’ aspect of the procedure.22 This scarcity of physical proof to support the claim to asylum is especially prevalent in applications for refugee status by female claimants. The male perpetrators from whom women are fleeing are also often in possession of their documentation, like passports or identification cards, which limits these women’s agency and movement and makes the process of seeking asylum significantly harder for women than men.23 Additionally, the persecution suffered by women, such as domestic violence or sexual assault, can hardly be corroborated with documentary evidence. Due to this lack of physical evidence, caseworkers are given a wide margin of discretion to assess whether the ‘story appears to be coherent, plausible, consistent, and detailed’.24 If the case worker finds that an asylum seeker seems ‘incoherent’ or ‘inconsistent’ in the description of her past, present or predicted persecution, or if her narrative is perceived as implausible or undetailed, her asylum application is less likely to be accepted.25 In the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) ‘Note on the Burden and Standard of Proof in Refugee Claims’, a non-binding document that aims to offer authoritative guidance,26 the credibility requirement is said to be satisfied where the claim provided by the applicant is ‘coherent and plausible… not contradicting generally known facts… [and hence] capable of being believed’.27 This definition requires considerable discretion at the hands of the asylum caseworker, a margin of appreciation that is susceptible to misogynistic biases. This ‘credibility assessment’ is central to refugee status determination, as evidenced by the UNHCR in their ‘Beyond Proof’ Report, which investigates this procedural step within the asylum claim assessment.28 This report recognises that the credibility component of the asylum claim assessment is often ‘determinative’ of its outcome. It stipulates that a significant proportion (e.g. 90% in Canada) of the decisions denying refugee status are based entirely on ‘adverse credibility findings’.29 Indeed, in R.K.S. v Refugee Appeals Tribunal and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, the Irish High Court acknowledged that asylum decisions often do not adequately take into account the facts of a case but rather rely on ‘instinct’ and ‘feel for credibility’.30 In this sense, the procedure stipulated by EU law grants substantial discretion to the caseworker and their subjective ideas of believability. Though dependence on the coherence of the asylum seeker for refugee status is also problematic for men, women are disproportionately affected by this policy. Compared to men, women are generally perceived as ‘less credible’31 and ‘less reliable’,32 a reality noted by scholars as the ‘gender credibility gap’.33 This gap is problematised most frequently in the light of sexual harassment claims, but is also applicable to asylum claims (female asylum seekers often flee from sexual violence, making it especially relevant).34 Research suggests that this effect of perceived non-reliability would be exacerbated if the caseworker were male, but remains relevant even if the caseworker were female, making the policy suggestion of more female caseworkers superfluous as they may be equally susceptible to similar misogynistic biases.35 This ‘culture of disbelief’ seems especially prevalent when the application for asylum is based on gender-related persecution. A 2011 report by Asylum Aid36 found that women were systematically disbelieved, that the uniquely female experience was often misunderstood, and that their persecution based on gender was routinely dismissed.37 For example, an asylum seeker’s story about her experience with female genital mutilation was found ‘implausible’ by her caseworker because they were entirely unfamiliar with the practice.38 In A. (Somalia) v Finnish Immigration Service, an applicant’s story of being imprisoned, raped by guards and then having escaped was deemed ‘unbelievable’ by three male caseworkers interviewing her because no woman raped in that prison had previously managed to escape.39 In X v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides, a Senegalese national applied for international protection on the grounds that she had been threatened by her partner and pursued by the government for receiving an abortion (which is illegal in Senegal).40 Her statements were found to be ‘incoherent’ and ‘not credible’ because the asylum adjudicators did not believe that anyone would risk imprisonment for helping a woman terminate her pregnancy. These aforementioned cases serve as an example of how the credibility requirement disrupts the female right to asylum and constitutes an interpretative tool through which women are arbitrarily disbelieved.41It is crucial to note that, rather than solely being subjected to discrimination simply because they are women, many female asylum seekers are oppressed to a further degree due to their concurrent existence as people of colour, who are often additionally perceived as ‘less reliable’.42 At the intersection of sexism, racism and xenophobia, refugee women are substantially disadvantaged by the requirement of their coherence as perceived by the caseworker. In practice, this essentially makes the burdens of proof and credibility discriminatorily high for refugee women. With the assessment of credibility being ‘the single most important step’ in determining refugee status, a considerable protection gap exists, leaving refugee women at the mercy of the caseworker’s discretion.43 Access to material justice, in this sense, is manifestly limited for female asylum seekers because they are women. The legal safeguards implemented to address these procedural and evidentiary hurdles to the female right to asylum have proven inadequate. This is mostly because the asylum application process is not legislated in international law. Rather, it constitutes a domestic process that needs to adhere to certain international standards. The standards relevant to the female plight of asylum include those stipulated by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which guarantees women the same equal treatment as their male counterparts in any procedural processes.44 General Recommendation No. 32 additionally requires State parties to recognise intersecting forms of discrimination and prohibit them.45 The CEDAW,46 along with the Istanbul Convention,47 stresses the importance of gender-sensitive asylum procedures, including the determination of refugee status. Even with these minimal protections, international refugee law does not adequately address these shortcomings in the procedural rights of women during the process of displacement. The ‘credibility’ component is not mentioned in the Refugee Convention, and is hence largely governed by regional or national bodies. The UNHCR provides guidance on ‘credibility’ in its ‘Handbook’, emphasising that caseworkers should attempt to resolve contradictions in testimony.48 Additionally, if the caseworker is satisfied with the applicant’s overall credibility, the asylum seeker should be given the benefit of the doubt.49 The latter ‘protection’ is still dependent on a subjective assessment of the individual’s reliability, which allows for discrimination against refugee women. The Handbook realises that the caseworker’s ‘personal impression of the applicant’ will be hugely influential on the decision, but fails to consider the forces of sexism, racism, xenophobia, and other prejudices that affect the assessment of the caseworker.50 Consequently, the female asylum seeker’s right to procedural fairness is undermined substantially by the permeation of bias allowed by international refugee law. Suggestions for legal reform to remedy this will follow the analysis of the ‘objective’ component of the asylum application in the next section.
Objective Element: The Well-Foundedness of Fear
The analysis presented thus far applies to the ‘fear’ within ‘well-founded fear’ pursuant to the Refugee Convention and hence constitutes the subjective element in the asylum decision. The ‘well-founded’ component presents the objective feature of the adjudication of refugee status and should therefore be less subject to biases that reduce a woman’s likelihood of receiving asylum. Whether the subjective fear is objectively ‘well-founded’ depends on socio-political conditions in the country of origin and the extent to which human rights are safeguarded both de jure and de facto. Though theoretically objective, in practice, the female experience is systematically undermined by the dependence on established accounts of the socio-political situation in the country of origin due to underreporting of gender-related persecution. CEDAW General Recommendation No. 32 defines gender-related forms of persecution as forms ‘that are directed against a woman because she is a woman or that affect women disproportionately’ and includes serious forms of domestic violence and the failure to conform to social norms prescribed to women.51 Explicit harm perpetuated by formal, institutional structures only presents the ‘tip of the iceberg’ of gender-related persecution. Most often, the violence from which women flee is perpetrated by non-State actors – family members, those within their social vicinity and society as a whole. Such instances of abuse often go undocumented.52 Since the persecution of women occurs largely in the private sphere, its occurrence is much less overt and recognisable than other more public acts of discrimination.53 Even if statistics are available, which is not frequently the case, they fail to accurately represent the detriment suffered by applicants. Thus, the ‘likelihood’ of female persecution is unfairly undermined because the information considered by immigration officers in their adjudication of ‘well-founded’ rarely adequately reflects the extent to which women actually face discrimination.The real effect of underreporting is evidently difficult to illustrate, but this article will attempt to do so. From 2008 to 2010, 520 incidences of sexual harassment in the workplace were reported in the whole of Pakistan.54 However, anonymous surveys found that around 70-90% of women experience such harassment: with well over 25 million Pakistani women in the workforce, this means the underreporting is prevalent.55 Furthermore, in India, 99.1% of sexual violence cases are unreported, and most of these cases are perpetrated by victims’ husbands.56 The reasons for this underreporting include fear of loss of work, fear of reprisal and, interestingly, the weak judicial system and high burden of proof.57 Consequently, underreporting is a self-perpetuating problem. Women do not report because of the judicial system’s apathy for their struggle; hence these crimes are committed with impunity, allowing perpetrators to continue their persecution. Due to this impunity created by underrporting, women cannot successfully seek asylum on the basis of such persecution because of the de facto discriminatory nature of the procedural mechanisms available to them. The lack of available evidence to appropriately reflect the extent of female persecution is especially problematic because personal testimony suffers under a ‘latent presumption of bad faith’, resulting in the applicant being disbelieved.58 Conversely, documentary evidence is regarded as ‘objective’ and is therefore preferred.59 When testimony and documentary information contradict each other, this leads to a negative finding of credibility. As documentary evidence often downplays the persecution actually experienced by women, it is likely that their personal reality contradicts such evidence. Hence, a negative decision on credibility becomes almost inevitable. In this manner, the law is inadequately structured to protect female asylum seekers and their right to asylum. On the contrary, its ambiguity instead allows for the systematic rejection of international protection for women who require it.
Legal Remedies
An in-depth analysis of the legal reform necessary to address these shortcomings of international refugee law falls beyond the this article’s scope, but a short discussion of possible reforms will be offered. The aim of any such remedial legislation (or amendment) would be to ensure that procedural rights of female asylum seekers are protected and that their asylum adjudication procedures and decisions are immune from bias. There exists at least a slight consensus that the absence of a precise and comprehensive body of international refugee law enables significant abuse of the prevailing ambiguities at the hands of domestic actors.60 International refugee law has not codified enough protectionary measures in its statutes to protect female asylum seekers from the bias against women, a social phenomenon that permeates the application procedure. Hence, legal reform or the introduction of new instruments at the international level may present most promise in remedying the issue. Choosing the frame of universally applicable legislation (rather than, for example, UNHCR or domestic policy) is subject to the ‘feasibility’ critique, as is the case with all of the suggested reforms discussed below. However, rather than focusing on political desirability, this analysis of possible solutions focuses on what would be best for and most competently protect female asylum seekers from persecution and an unfair asylum adjudication procedure. One solution that has been proposed elsewhere is the formal inclusion of gender-related persecution in the ambit of Article 1(A)(2) of the Refugee Convention.61 This would elevate gendered persecution out of its circuitous existence as a reason for international protection through membership of a particular social group, and curtail the exercise of state discretion in whether gendered persecution may even constitute membership of a particular social group. Though a development that would help the plight of female asylum seekers, the right for women to seek asylum under this heading would still be undermined and lead to the unfair and arbitrary rejection of applications if the asylum adjudication procedure remains the same. Though this may present a promising avenue for development, it may still be insufficient because those women not applying under the ambit of gendered persecution but invoking another reason would be unable to benefit. Another viable option is to raise international standards for the adjudication procedure by requiring the decision-making agents in that process to be experts in either the type of persecution from which the applicant is fleeing or the applicant’s country of origin, preferably both. If the caseworkers are knowledgeable of these factors, the burden of proof lies less heavily on the asylum seeker and the female struggle is more likely to be recognised. This solution would most help remedy shortcomings within the objective component of the procedure, but may additionally have a positive effect on the subjective aspect. With increased familiarity of the types of issues faced by women in their respective countries of origin, personal testimony could be increasingly recognised and believed. To be effective, these standards would have to be legally binding and internationally recognised, possibly necessitating reform of the Refugee Convention.Another important facet that would supplement the aforementioned suggestion would be the international justiciability of asylum adjudication decisions. This does not only present a possibility for an enforcement mechanism of the international refugee order, but would additionally allow the development of jurisprudence to inform future asylum decisions. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) have played a large role in the advancement of refugee protection,62 with refugee law developing mostly through jurisprudence.63 But rather than having only regional influence, an international court would retain relevance on a global scale. Though the International Court of Justice has the jurisdiction to interpret the Refugee Convention,64 it has not yet adjudicated on the subject. This avenue of legal reform allows the circumvention of national governments’ political apathy to remedy the poor treatment of female asylum seekers.Possibly the most effective and radical solution for the protection of the female right to asylum is to adopt a newfound interpretation of this right: rather than guaranteeing the right to seek asylum (as this solution has often been interpreted as), it should guarantee the right to receive asylum. This means, most aptly, that the State has a duty to grant territorial protection to those that fulfill the most liberal interpretation of the legal definition of a ‘refugee’. Ultimately, the worst possible consequence of the asylum process and its bias against the female asylum seeker is a negative asylum decision, forcing vulnerable women to return to or remain in a violent situation without protection from a guest or home State. What would help refugee women the most, even more than protection of procedural rights, is a positive asylum decision. With international protection guaranteed to anyone that seeks it, the asylum adjudication process becomes superfluous. The practical infeasibility of this method, though indeed radical, should not be overstated: jurisprudence from the ECJ65 and the EctHR66 reveal certain articles of the EU Charter as well as the European Convention on Human Rights already necessitate a de facto right to asylum. Though it has been argued that a right to be granted asylum is emerging in customary law,67 the aforementioned suggestion of enhancing the international standards to which domestic processes should adhere may be the best option to induce immediate change. Naturally, international law still suffers from a lack of enforcement mechanism, arguably leading to an implementation gap. However, international instruments do not only carry normative weight but, unlike UNHCR policies, are also binding upon parties. This, in combination with an international court which reviews domestic asylum decisions under the scope of procedural fairness and gender equality pursuant to international human rights treaties, could lessen the bias that women face in the current asylum adjudication procedure.
Conclusion
Whether an individual is recognised as a refugee depends, ultimately, on whether the caseworker believes her story (the ‘subjective’ element) and what the caseworker believes to be the situation in her country of origin as per ‘objective’ evidence. Due to the effects of both individualised and systemic sexism, these wide discretionary margins result in a violation of the rights to asylum, non-discrimination and procedural fairness. In this sense, gender-related persecution proves not to be exclusive to the respective countries of origin, but rather permeates asylum processes and experiences on a global scale – a phenomenon that international refugee law inadequately takes into account and thus perpetuates. I would like to extend my gratitude to Chaloka Beyani for his inspiring class that inspired this work and for his valuable feedback on this article.
[1] Nahla Valji, Lee Anne de la Hunt and Helen Moffett, ‘Where Are the Women? Gender Discrimination in Refugee Policies and Practices’ (2003) 55 Agenda: Empowering Women for Gender Equality 61.[2] ibid.[3] Judi Brownell, ‘Communicating with Credibility: The Gender Gap’ (1993) 34(2) The Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly 52.[4] Commission, ‘Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ COM (2020) 609 final.[5] ibid.[6] Regulations for asylum application procedures are stipulated mostly within domestic law, but the EU especially has exerted some effort to harmonise the asylum application process. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) additionally has released guidelines to establish a common standard for the asylum process which will be referred to throughout the analysis.[7] Guy S. Goodwin-Gill and Jane McAdam, The Refugee in International law (4th edn, Oxford University Press 2006) 19. [8] Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (adopted 28 July 1951, entered into force 22 April 1954) 189 UNTS 137 (Refugee Convention) art 1A(2).[9] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[10] Refugee Convention (n 8).[11] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[12] ibid.[13] This phenomenon of insufficient protection at the hands of the state is most adequately displayed in Opuz v Turkey App no 33401/02 (ECtHR, 9 June 2009). In this case, the applicant and her mother were run over by her husband in their car and stabbed seven times. Her husband pressured her to drop her complaints and for both of these offences the domestic court only imposed a fine.[14] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[15] European Parliament and Council Directive 2011/95/EU of 13 December 2011 on standards for the qualification of third-country nationals or stateless persons as beneficiaries of international protection, for a uniform status for refugees or for persons eligible for subsidiary protection, and for the content of the protection granted [2011] OJ L337, 9.[16] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[17] Hanna Wikström and Thomas Johansson, ‘Credibility Assessments as ‘Normative Leakage’: Asylum Applications, Gender and Class’ (2013) 1(2) Social Inclusion 93. [18] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[19] Opuz (n 13).[20] European Parliament and Council Directive 2011/95/EU (n 15) art 9.[21] ibid.[22] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[23] Helen Muggeridge and Chen Maman, ‘Unsustainable: the quality of initial decision-making in women’s asylum claims’ (Asylum Aid, January 2011) <https://www.refworld.org/docid/4d3435d12.html> accessed 17 February 2022.[24] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[25] ibid.[26] Denise Venturi, ‘Filling the Gaps? The Role of UNHCR ‘Soft Law’ Instruments in Developing the EU Framework on Asylum Claims Based on Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity’ (Sogica Conference, 7 July 2020) <https://www.sogica.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Session-1_Denise-Venturi-1.pdf> accessed 21 February 2022. [27] UNHCR ‘Note on Burden and Standard of Proof in Refugee Claims’ (Geneva 16 December 1998).[28] UNHCR ‘Full Report – Beyond Proof. Credibility Assessment in EU Asylum Systems’ (Brussels May 2013).[29] Cécile Rousseau and others, ‘The Complexity of Determining Refugeehood: A Multidisciplinary Analysis of the Decision-making Process of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board’ (2002) 15(1) Journal of Refugee Studies 43.[30] R.K.S. v Refugee Appeals Tribunal and Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2004] IEHC 520 (High Court of Ireland).[31] Merryn McKinnon and Christine O’Connell, ‘Perceptions of stereotypes applied to women who publicly communicate their STEM work’ (2020) 7 Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 160.[32] Deborah Epstein and Lisa Goodman, ‘Discounting Women: Doubting Domestic Violence Survivors’ Credibility and Dismissing Their Experiences’ (2019) 167(2) University of Pennsylvania Law Review 399.[33] Brownell (n 3).[34] Venturi (n 26).[35] Bridget Larson and Stanley Brodsky, ‘When Cross-Examination Offends: How Men and Women Assess Intrusive Questioning of Male and Female Expert Witnesses’ (2010) 40(4) Journal of Applied Social Psychology 811.[36] Muggeridge and Maman (n 23).[37] In 87% of the studied cases, the female applicant’s claim was not believed (Rousseau and others (n 29)).[38] Muggeridge and Maman (n 23).[39] A. (Somalia) v Finnish Immigration Service [2020] KHO:2020:91 (Supreme Administrative Court, Finland).[40] X c. le Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides, n° 262 192, 13 octobre 2021, Conseil du Contentieux des Etrangers (Belgium).[41] It is relevant to note that some of these cases were overturned by either the CJEU or the ECtHR. However, this does not address the magnitude of negative civil asylum procedural cases that exist in domestic archives. Access to the European Union and its legal remedies is meager and could force a dangerous journey. Though jurisprudence is promising, especially for the field of asylum law, dependence on the European courts does not constitute a solution for most female asylum seekers.[42] Amanda Carlin, ‘The Courtroom as White Space: Racial Performance as Noncredibility’ (2016) 63 UCLA Law Review 450. This analysis reflects the aforementioned credibility gap in court in the George Zimmerman trial for the shooting of Trayvon Martin.[43] James Sweeney, ‘Credibility, Proof and Refugee Law’ (2009) 21 International Journal of Refugee Law 700.[44] Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 (CEDAW) art 15.[45] UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ‘General recommendation No. 32 on the gender-related dimensions of refugee status, asylum, nationality and statelessness of women’ (5 November 2014) CEDAW/C/GC/32.[46] CEDAW (n 44).[47] The Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (adopted 11 May, entered into force 1 August 2014) CETS No. 210 (Istanbul Convention).[48] UNHCR, ‘Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status and Guidelines on International Protection Under the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees’ (Geneva, February 2019) UN Doc HCR/1P/4/ENG/REV.4 para 199.[49] ibid para 204.[50] ibid para 202.[51] UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ‘CEDAW General Recommendation No. 23: Political and Public Life’ (1997) UN Doc A/52/38.[52] CEDAW (n 44) para 27.[53] ibid.[54] Abdul Hadi, ‘Workplace Sexual Harassment and its Underreporting in Pakistan’ (2018) 4 European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 148. [55] ibid.[56] Anupriya Dhonchak, ‘Why It Is Time To Recognise Marital Rape As A Crime’ (Article 14, 1 September 2021) <https://article-14.com/post/why-it-is-time-to-recognise-marital-rape-as-a-crime–612eeda9e54b8> accessed 17 February 2022.[57] UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, ‘CEDAW General Recommendation No. 23: Political and Public Life’ (n 51).[58] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[59] ibid.[60] Rosemary Byrne, ‘Assessing Testimonial Evidence in Asylum Proceedings: Guiding Standards from the International Criminal Tribunals’ (2007) 19 International Journal of Refugee Law 609.[61] Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (n 7).[62] James Hathaway, ‘A Forum for the Transnational Development of Refugee Law: The IARLJ’s Advanced Refugee Law Workshop’ (2003) 15(3) International Journal of Refugee Law 418.[63] Hélène Lambert and Guy S. Goodwin-Gill (eds), The Limits of Transnational Law: Refugee Law, Policy Harmonization and Judicial Dialogue in the European Union (Cambridge University Press 2010).[64] Refugee Convention (n 8) art 38.[65] Joined Cases C-391/16, C-77/17 and C-78/17 M and Others v Commissaire général aux réfugiés et aux apatrides [2019] EU:C:2019:403.[66] Gaberamadhien v France App no 25389/05 (ECtHR, 26 April 2007).[67] María-Teresa Gil-Bazo, ‘The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Right to be Granted Asylum in the Union’s Law’ (2008) 27(3) Refugee Survey Quarterly 33.