Women who are exposed to violence on the basis of their gender have the right to apply for protection in the EU, the European Court of Justice has confirmed.
Women outside of the European Union who are at risk of gender-based violence such as so-called honor killings can qualify for refugee status, the European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday (January 16).
The Luxembourg-based court confirmed that women who are exposed to "physical or mental violence, including sexual violence and domestic violence" on account of their gender can apply for protection. The court added that if the conditions for granting refugee status are not satisfied, they may qualify for subsidiary protection status, in particular where they are at risk of being killed or subjected to violence such as by members of their community or family.
Court agrees gender-based violence is a form of persecution
The case emerged after a Turkish national of Kurdish origin claimed her family forced her into a marriage in Turkey. After being beaten up and threatened by her husband, she escaped to Bulgaria and applied for international protection in the Balkan country, prompting a Bulgarian court to seek a decision from the ECJ. The woman later travelled to Germany.
The ECJ advocate general, Richard de la Tour, had warned the Luxembourg court that if the Kurdish woman in question was forced to go back to Turkey, she would face 'acts of serious marital violence.' Repeated violence is capable of leading to a serious breach of a person’s fundamental rights, he stressed.
The grounds for obtaining refugee status under European Union law include persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group.
The ECJ established that gender-based violence against women is a form of persecution, and that EU refugee status is applicable to women as they may persecuted because of their "membership of a particular social group" – concluding that women as a whole may be considered as belonging to a social group.
Gender-based violence against women is also recognized as a form of persecution under the Istanbul Convention on violence against women. Turkey withdrew from the Convention in 2021. According to a report published in November 2022 by the Federation of Women Associations of Turkey, at least 327 women had been killed that year, mostly by their partners and family members.
Partner and community violence threaten lives of women awaiting refugee status in EU
The confirmation from the ECJ gives hope for many women and girls seeking asylum across the EU.
Diana Dimova, the head of the Bulgarian human rights NGO Mission Wings, says scores of women and girls awaiting their asylum status have come into her consultation room to share their stories of gender-based violence – some of the women have suffered years of rape.
"The practices we encounter in our work are related to physical violence; forced marriages – some of which involve selling the girl, even children; genital castration of underage girls and sexual exploitation," Dimova told InfoMigrants.
Asylum seekers suffering from gender-based violence in particular struggle to seek and receive help from institutions and social services in Bulgaria.
"They are highly discriminated against because of their origin, especially people of Middle Eastern or African origin," Dimova said, adding: "Social services continue to be inhospitable to refugees and refugees are often denied access to them." In addition, language barriers further complicate the process.
According to Dimova, perpetrators of gender-based violence against asylum seekers often hail from the same community as the women and girls (e.g. other migrants from their hometown or belonging to the same ethnic group), or are family members or a spouse.
In one case, Zohra*, a 37-year-old mother from Tunisia, escaped to Turkey after several years of suffering sexual exploitation under her now ex-husband. Her ex-husband managed to track her down in Turkey, abducted her and locked her up in a flat in the capital Ankara. For three years she was raped several times a day by various men her husband took to the flat.
"After much difficulty, she was granted humanitarian status after an initial rejection by the (Bulgarian) Refugee Agency," Dimova told InfoMigrants.
Zainab* is a 34-year-old single mother of two from Iraq. After seeking asylum in Bulgaria, she found a new partner from the Kurdish community and fell pregnant again. Shortly after giving birth, her new partner began to beat her, so Dimova placed her in a women's domestic violence shelter in the capital Sofia as she awaits her refugee status.