An Overview of Development of Gender Based Persecution in Refugee Law under Membership of a Particular Social Group: A Study of Comparative Jurisprudence of Canada, UK & USA

Abstract

Refugees are the most vulnerable people in the world who flee from homeland for saving life because of well fear of being persecution according to the 1951 Refugee Convention. Reports say that women and child refugee are almost 80% of the total number of refugees. Critics also pointed out  that international refugee law is conceptually narrow. It is only limited to particular classes of people that included race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group of people or political opinion, where  women’s view, women’s persecution was neglected and thus it is difficult for a woman to claim and establish as a refugee. Later, UNHCR introduced several guidelines to overcome the limitation of international refugee law, in particularly for women refugees, who face gender based persecution because of her gender. Further, case laws and guidelines for the women refugees  of different jurisprudences also contributed for the protection of women refugees. Now, application for claim of women refugee before the adjudicator is not neglected. Rights for women refugee are well settled at the present world. The aim of this paper is to critically discuss the landmark case laws of Canada, U.K. and U.S. who extremely contributed for the development of gender based refugee claim. And finally, there is a conclusion of the discussion.

Keywords: Case, Convention, Discrimination, Female Genital Mutilation, Gender Based Persecution, Guidelines, Jurisprudence, Membership, Particular Social Group, Women.