Tahirih Congressional Briefing Draws Attention to Threats Facing Gender-Based Asylum’s Progress
In September 2007, the nation’s highest immigration court, the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA), issued a disturbing decision (Matter of A-T-) denying the request for asylum of a young woman who was subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) as a child and who fears a forced marriage if she is returned to Mali. The BIA’s decision discounted the terrible consequences of FGM, including ongoing physical and psychological harms, by comparing the suffering to the “loss of a limb,” and ruling that because FGM happens to a woman only once, it is generally not a basis for asylum. The BIA likewise discounted the young woman’s forced marriage claim, characterizing her circumstances as reflecting “family tradition” rather than persecution. The BIA’s decision in Matter of A-T- poses a direct threat to the ability of Tahirih’s clients, and others, who have suffered FGM to receive protection in the United States.
Other alarming recent judicial decisions also threaten to deny protection to asylum-seekers fleeing forced marriage, brutal domestic violence, and the fear of female genital mutilation for their daughters. At each of these legal twists and turns, the lives of real women and girls hang in the balance.
Tahirih is advocating in partnership with other organizations and a broad spectrum of political allies to reverse decisions hostile to gender-related asylum applications and restore the availability of protection in the United States to women and girls fleeing violent human rights abuses.
One valuable opportunity to call the attention of policymakers and the public to these trends of concern was a Congressional Briefing Tahirih held on March 11, 2008, together with Honorary Co-Hosts Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) and Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA). The event marked Tahirih’s Ten Year Anniversary and offered an especially timely moment for a critical retrospective on the development of US gender-based asylum law.
Both Congressmen offered inspiring opening remarks, followed by a welcome address that sounded a call to action by Her Royal Highness Princess Dana Firas of Jordan, who serves on Tahirih’s Board of Directors. Her remarks conveyed the urgency of the plight of women and girls fleeing violence around the world, noting how many are subjected every minute, hour, day, and year to domestic violence, forced marriage, FGM, rape, honor killings, human trafficking, and other horrific human rights abuses. Bo Cooper, former General Counsel to the Immigration and Naturalization Service from 1999-2003 and an instrumental contributor to gender-based asylum law in the United States, reflected on the early development of the field. Tahirih’s Executive Director, Layli Miller-Muro, addressed recent legal setbacks. Layli helped litigate Matter of Kasinga (sic) as a student attorney, the landmark case decided in 1996 that established FGM as a valid ground for asylum.
Tahirih clients made particularly moving contributions to the Congressional Briefing. They made the life-saving hope that the United States can offer to women and girls fleeing violence real and immediate for the audience. An anniversary video, Voices of Courage, Stories of Justice, was shown at the briefing that featured several clients’ struggles to find safety and build new lives in the United States. In addition, two former Tahirih clients participated as briefing panelists. Ruth, a current Tahirih Board member, recounted how she had to flee her country after her husband died to save her daughter from female genital mutilation, and herself from being forced to marry her late husband’s brother, as tribal custom would have demanded. Her escape involved a terrifying year of living in hiding with her children before finally managing to flee to the United States and find legal protection with Tahirih’s help. Farida, an Afghani women’s human rights activist and former Tahirih Board member, kindly acted as a stand-in to recount the difficult story of a mother and daughter who were subjected to FGM as young girls. Both women were actually in the audience at the briefing but unable to bring themselves to speak publicly. They powerfully described their suffering in the statement that Farida read aloud as “wounds,” rather than “scars,” to acknowledge the very present pain they feel because of their past experiences:
Both my daughter and I were forced to undergo female genital mutilation as young girls. I was mutilated when I was 11 years old. I am now 53, and 42 years later, I still vividly recall what happened to me. My daughter was mutilated when she was 7 years old. She is now 35 and 28 years later, her painful memories are still with her. Even though we were only children, you are old enough at 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 years old to carry with you the memory of that kind of horror forever. Every day of our lives it affects us, both physically and emotionally.
For me, the worst is what happened to my daughter. It hurts to talk about what happened to me, what I went through, what I go through still to this day, but I can do it, I can get through it without breaking down. But I cannot speak of what my daughter went through without weeping. I am overwhelmed with feelings of guilt and sadness that I could not protect her. This is unbearable torture for a mother, and yet I must bear it every day of my life.
Although we have made great progress in gender-based asylum law in the last decade, recent judicial decisions signal a dangerous departure by the United States from its commitment to protect those few brave women—like the mother and daughter above—who are able to escape horrific human rights abuses and seek protection in the United States. The Tahirih Justice Center is committed to advocating for a change in this trend and ensuring protections for women and girls fleeing violence.
For their financial support of the Congressional Briefing, Tahirih is grateful to Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP; Arnold & Porter LLP; DLA Piper; The Estee Lauder Companies Inc.; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Lifetime Television; Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP; and the Washington College of Law at American University.
