The gender and nationality of an Afghan woman can be enough to show that she is being persecuted in order to be granted refugee status, the Court of Justice of the European Union has said. The move comes after Austria rejected the refugee status of two Afghan women.
The gender and nationality of an Afghan woman can be enough to show that she is being persecuted in order to be granted refugee status, the Court of Justice of the European Union has said. The decision came after Austria rejected the refugee status of two Afghan women.
Afghan women do not need to demonstrate that they are at risk of persecution as individuals in Afghanistan, says the ECJ. Image: Wakil Kohsar / AFP
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), the EU’s highest court, said on Friday that Afghan women were being persecuted by the Taliban.
The ruling says that some discriminatory measures adopted by the Taliban are “acts of persecution”, citing forced marriage and the lack of protection against gender-based violence. Thus, the Court ruled in favor of two Afghan women in Austria, who had argued that their status as women under the Taliban regime justified them being granted refugee status.
The case was brought before the ECJ at the request of the Austrian Supreme Administrative Court after the two Afghan women contested a decision by the Austrian authorities to refuse to recognize their refugee status.
The Austrian court asked for clarification on whether discriminatory measures against women in Afghanistan can be classified as acts of persecution.
The ECJ declared that certain measures, in themselves, constituted acts of persecution.
“This is true of forced marriage, which is comparable to a form of slavery, and of the lack of protection against gender-based violence and domestic violence, which constitute forms of inhuman and degrading treatment,” the Court said in the their press release. Friday. . He added that other measures, which may not be serious enough to qualify as violations of fundamental rights when taken in isolation, constitute violations when taken cumulatively.
