Council of Europe, ‘Gender-based asylum claims and non-refoulement: Articles 60 and 61 of the Istanbul Convention. A collection of papers on the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence’, February 2020

On 10 February 2020, the Council of Europe published a new study on Gender-based asylum claims and non-refoulement: Articles 60 and 61 of the Istanbul Convention. The purpose of the publication is to support the implementation of these articles by providing policy makers, border and immigration officials and practitioners with practical advice including definitions, information and examples of gender-based violence that may be recognised as forms of persecution or other serious harm. It also illustrates how to ensure that a gender-sensitive interpretation is given to each of the convention grounds, what are the requirements of gender-sensitive reception procedures and gender-sensitive practice and procedure in respect of refugee status determination, and applications for other forms of international protection. It discusses the additional protection of the non-refoulement principle and concludes with a checklist which summarises the requirements of the provisions affecting asylum-seeking and refugee women in Articles 60 and 61 of the Istanbul Convention. The checklist should help in designing and implementing measures in law, policy and practice to implement Articles 60 and 61. This publication belongs to a series of in-depth analyses of articles of the Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention).

Article 4, paragraph 3 of the Istanbul Convention makes clear that: The implementation of the provisions of this Convention by the Parties, in particular measures to protect the rights of victims, shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, gender, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, state of health, disability, marital status, migrant or refugee status, or other status.