Seeking Refuge? - Rights of Women

Would you be safe anywhere
else? Internal relocation
When considering your claim for protection, the
decision-maker will consider whether you would be
safe from the harm you fear in another part of your
country. This is called internal relocation or the
internal flight alternative.
Internal relocation is more likely to be an issue in
your case if you fear persecution from non-State
actors who live in a specific area, such as family
members or criminal gangs who know where you
are. It may be that you would be safe from people
like this if you moved to another part of your
country.
When deciding whether you should move
somewhere else in your country, rather than being
given protection in the UK, the decision-maker
should consider whether:
• there is another part of the country where you
could go that would be safe; and, if there is:
• whether it would be very unfair to expect you
to go and stay there. The legal test used is
whether or not it would be “unduly harsh” 2
to expect you to move.
When considering whether or not it would be
unduly harsh for you to move to a different area
of your country, the decision-maker should
consider the financial, practical, social and cultural
factors that affect the ability of women to move
to a different area. This means that they should
consider where you would live, how you could
find somewhere safe and how you would be able
to support yourself.
Example of a case: AA (Uganda)
[2008] 3
In this case, the Court of Appeal held that it
would be unduly harsh for AA, a woman who
had experienced physical and sexual violence,
to move to a different area in Uganda when
she had no family or other support and may
have to enter into prostitution to support
herself.
The Convention Reasons
The Refugee Convention does not protect people
from general threats to their safety, such as
threats that come from a war or a flood. Instead,
you have to show that you fear persecution for
one, or more, of the following Convention
reasons:
• race;
• religion;
• nationality;
• political opinion; and / or
• membership of a “particular social group”.
Your race is your skin colour or your membership
of a particular ethnic group or clan. A person may
be persecuted because of their race by others of a
different race to them. Women may be
persecuted because of their role in having
children. For example, women may be raped by
members of another racial group to punish them,
and so that they have children who are members
of that other racial group.
Your religion is the beliefs that you have about
whether or not there is a god or gods.
Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Sikhism
all involve believing in a god or gods, while other
religious beliefs, such as humanism or ancestor
worship do not involve a god. A person may be
persecuted for their religious beliefs when their
beliefs are different to those of their State, where
they have changed their religion, or where they
have no religion at all. Women may be persecuted
for not following the rules of a religion.
Your nationality is your membership of a
particular State or group. For example, a person
born in Britain to British parents will be British.
Your nationality may be determined by the place
you were born, or it may be linked to other things
such as your culture, ethnicity, language or
political opinion. An example of someone who is
persecuted for their nationality could be a woman
who is punished for encouraging people who
share her language and culture to set up their
own country, or form links with another country
which also shares her language and culture.
Your political opinions are your opinions, thoughts
or beliefs on particular issues. Some examples of
expressions of political opinion are:
2
AH (Sudan) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2007] 3 WLR 832
3 AA (Uganda) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2008] EWCA Civ 579
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