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Becoming a Refugee Woman: Gender-Based Persecution and Women Asylum Seekers under International Refugee Law

In this essay, I seek to examine the idea of a ‘refugee’ as understood within the international refugee law framework which excludes the various forms of gender-based persecution faced by women. By virtue of being gender-neutral, international refugee law fails to address the differential impact of laws and policies on men and women. Despite an emerging a body of law in Western states that consider various forms of physical, sexual and family violence while assessing women’s asylum claims, it will be significant to discuss the politics of such progressive interpretation of refugee law on one hand and restrictive asylum policies, on the other. Another interesting aspect of this debate is the general hesitation in accepting women as politically active persons by most refugee-receiving states. The lacuna in the law is clear but its solution is not. Whether the solution lies in the amendment of the ‘refugee’ definition by recognising women as a ‘particular social group’ in the 1951 Convention or whether a larger debate needs to be initiated with regard to providing refugees the political space to exercise their rights in their host countries, shall also be briefly explored.