Campaign for gender guidance across Europe
EU member states' interpretation of the Refugee Convention does not reflect the experiences of women. They may have political opinions imputed to them because of the activities of their male relatives, or they may experience persecution in the private sphere such as domestic violence, honour crimes, forced marriage or female genital mutilation, where the state is unable or unwilling to protect them.
The UK and Sweden have specific gender guidelines to overcome this. At the Refugee Women's Resource Project (RWRP) at Asylum Aid, we are campaigning for all member states of the European Union to adopt gender guidance so that women's asylum claims will be dealt with consistently.
The UK Government expressed interest in promoting its own gender guidelines across Europe, and in November 2005, it tabled our paper Gender issues in assessing asylum claims: spreading good practice across the European Union at the Intergovernmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugees and Migration Policies held in Geneva.
We are currently part of a project to encourage member states to interpret the EU Qualification and Procedures Directives in a gender-sensitive way by using the UNHCR Gender Guidelines. In 2007 RWRP and the European Women's Lobby published a lobbying tool to assist organisations working on women's rights, asylum/refugee rights, human rights, lesbian and transgender rights to monitor the transposition into national law of these two European Directives which directly impact on women's right to asylum. See: Asylum is not gender neutral - practical advocacy guide for protecting women seeking asylum.