Thousands of people each year flee human rights abuse overseas and seek asylum in Europe. One third are women.
A new research report, published by Asylum Aid and its European partners looks in detail at the handling of gender-based asylum claims in nine EU member states. It focuses on the experiences of women across Europe, and the desperate need to ensure that women can claim asylum safely and in dignity.
The research was conducted in response to long-standing concerns that national asylum systems across Europe fall well short of this requirement. It was produced as part of the Gensen project, which ran between October 2010 and May 2012 and which aimed to enhance gender equality in the European asylum process.
The report finds that there are vast and worrying disparities in the way different EU States handle gender-related asylum claims.
As a result, women are not guaranteed anything close to consistent, gender-sensitive treatment when they seek protection in Europe. Women seeking asylum are too often confronted with legislation and policy that fail to meet acceptable standards, while even gender-sensitive policies are not implemented in practice.
Download link: Gender-related asylum claims in Europe