Gender and asylum in Hungary
A new study is available and can be downloaded.
Gende r-based asylum claims are rare in Hungary. Therefore, the Office of Immigration and Nationality (OIN) and judges have limited specific experience in dealing with these issues. Furthermore, OIN decision-makers and law enforcement officers do not have the gender-specific training necessary to implement appropriate practices, not only in the initial screening and first-instance procedures, but also in those pertaining to special needs and credibility assessment, subsequent claims policy, detention, reception and integration.
In general, women with gender-based claims receive protection. However, certain cases were pointed out where decisions were clearly lacking gender sensitivity. For example, domestic violence was not recognized as persecution based on a particular social group, imputed political opinion is rarely recognized as a ground for persecution, past female genital mutilation (FGM) and rape were not recognized as persecution, gender aspects were not sufficiently considered when examining internal protection alternatives and lack of country information (COI) was considered as a proof for the lack of persecution. However, these were isolated cases that could be due to a lack of sensitivity of the particular asylum officers or judges involved and cannot be considered as a general practice. The study is based on the research in the framework of the “GenSen project” from 2011 and it can be downloaded here. |