“Women seeking asylum in Bulgaria:
aspects of gender–based applications for protection”:
research done by Maria Nikolova (attorney-at-law) with the support of the Gender Alternatives Foundation

On average 1/3 of all persons having sought international protection /asylum in some of the Member States of the European Union are women. Asylum seeking women were forced to quit their country of origin because of sexual violence, torture, and other forms of violations of their human rights.

    The present research on gender-based asylum applications comes as a result of the observation that the European countries do not follow or comply adequately with the international standards for gender sensitive approach set forth in the directions of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the European Union legislation. As a result, women seeking asylum in Europe are not protected against discrimination, re-victimization and re –traumatizing during protection granting procedures.

The research on gender-based applications for protection implies a thorough analysis on the existing legal regulations and policies on asylum granting and gender equality standards. This research identifies some problematic areas and difficulties in the national refugees’ system and formulates some recommendations for its improvement and bringing into alignment with the protection standards perceived as European Union’s intrinsic values.

    This research points out to some important conclusions based on a review of the case law on asylum application procedures initiated by women in the last three years. The results indicate that the gender sensitive approach is still not applied effectively in practice as far as Bulgarian refugees’ legislation is concerned.

UNHCR among other international organizations and UN institutions have formulated the following recommendations /supported and expanded by the present research as well/ for improvement of women’s protection within the refugees’ legislation:

-    UNHCR Guidelines on Gender-related persecution to be translated in Bulgarian and disseminated throughout the community including among the asylum seekers;
-    UNHCR Guidelines on Gender-related persecution to be considered when reviewing international protection applications by all authorities involved – administrative, judicial or other bodies/persons charged with relevant activity;
-    Gender–related Guidelines on a national level to be created, disseminated and applied;
-    Strategic gender-based cases for protection applications to be brought before the national and international courts and forums /recommendation to NGOs/;
-    Ensuring a gender-sensitive interpretation of all the provisions in the Convention relating to the status of refugees, 1951;
-    Providing handbooks, trainings and consultations available to employees working on gender-based applications;     
-    Providing bodies/persons in charge of consideration of protection applications with gender-specific information about the state of origin; 
-    Giving women asylum seekers a choice as to the interviewer’s gender;
-    Finding a method for the early identification of people from vulnerable groups and providing them with adequate living conditions;
-    Collecting, preparing and allowing public access to desegregated on gender, age and citizenship information on protection grants and denials, number of appeals and their results, as well as number and kind of protection granted by the primary administrative act without having been appealed.    

The Research would be available on the GAF's web page at the beginning of February 2013.