Obama Administration's Filings On Asylum For Abused Foreign Women Brings 'Overdue Dose Of Clarity,' Editorial Says

Main Category: Women's Health / Gynecology
Article Date: 22 Jul 2009 - 6:00 PDT

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The Obama administration recently laid out "a clear but narrow pathway" toward asylum for foreign women who have experienced severe physical or sexual abuse, a New York Times editorial states, noting that the U.S. government has debated the issue for 15 years. According to the editorial, the "question is not the fact of persecution, but whether the women would qualify for protection under the law, which limits asylum to those who suffer due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or 'membership in a particular social group.'" It adds that attorneys general under former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush "have gone both ways and in circles" in their decisions.

Although "[n]ot all victims will qualify," the Obama administration "made it clear that some could," the editorial states. "A petitioner would have to demonstrate to a judge that domestic violence was widely tolerated by society and government in her country, that women were viewed as subordinate to men and that she had no place within its borders to find a safe haven," the editorial adds.

Department of Homeland Security lawyers say the new definition could apply to a severely abused Mexican woman, identified only by her initials, whose asylum petition is before a San Francisco immigration court. The editorial notes that DHS "did not immediately recommend asylum" for the woman, but "it did urge that she be allowed to continue to gather evidence and to refine her case according to the standards it proposed." The editorial concludes, "Advocates who have fought for years to advance women's rights are celebrating the department's action, which brings reasoned compassion, and an overdue dose of clarity, to an issue of anguish and difficulty" (New York Times, 7/19).

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