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Full-Text Articles in Law
Untold Stories: Gender-Related Persecution And Asylum In South Africa, Lindsay M. Harris
Untold Stories: Gender-Related Persecution And Asylum In South Africa, Lindsay M. Harris
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article explains the particular difficulties that female asylum seekers and survivors of gender-related persecution face, reaffirming the need for the practical and sensitive application of international and domestic gender guidelines. Extensive research into client files and interviews with key decision makers prove that, despite scholarship suggesting that women may be advantaged in asylum proceedings, a focus on gender is still needed in the South African context. While there are undoubtedly problematic elements of the 1998 Refugees Act warranting its revision, the addition of gender as an additional category under the refugee definition, as proposed by the recent Refugees Amendment …
More Than Mere Semantics: The Case For An Expansive Definition Of Persecution In Sexual Minority Asylum Claims, Monica Saxena
More Than Mere Semantics: The Case For An Expansive Definition Of Persecution In Sexual Minority Asylum Claims, Monica Saxena
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law
This Article asserts that the requirement in U.S. asylum law that requires an asylee to make a showing of persecutory intent is overly and especially restrictive in claims made by sexual minorities. This Article proposes that the U.S. adopt the asylum standards of New Zealand and Canada, where the focus is on the failure of government protection as opposed to a focus on persecutory intent. Such standards are consistent with both the realities of persecution that sexual minorities encounter and the original impetus behind the Refugee Convention. Part I examines the different forms of persecution against sexual minorities. Part II …