Refugee Women and the Imperative of Categories

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Abstract
On March 9, 1993, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) issued guidelines entitled “Women Refugee Claimants Fearing Gender-Related Persecution” 3 (hereinafter Guidelines). The purpose of the Guidelines is to provide IRB decisionmakers with a means of interpreting the legal definition of a refugee in a gender sensitive manner. The Guidelines were issued amid public outcry over several well publicized incidents regarding the plight of women who had made unsuccessful refugee claims based on gender related persecution. In the first case, a Saudi woman, known as “Nada,” defied the law of her country by refusing to wear a veil. For this transgression, she was spat upon, publicly harassed, and threatened with arrest by unofficial “religious police.” The Convention Refugee Determination Division (CRDD) 4 panel hearing her case castigated Nada for her effrontery:

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