CEDAW/C/62/D/56/2013
Optional Protocol. It noted that the author had sought to apply the obligations under
the Convention in an extraterritorial manner. The State party referred to
communication No. 33/2011, 1 stating that it appeared from the reasoning of the
Committee in that communication that the Convention had extraterritorial effect only
when the woman, if returned, would be exposed to a real, personal and foreseeable
risk of serious forms of gender-based violence. The State party was of the view that
the acts of States parties that might have an indirect effect on a person’s rights under
the Convention in other States could entail responsibility for the State party only
under exceptional circumstances in which the person, if returned, would be at risk of
being deprived of life or being exposed to torture or other inhuman or degrading
treatment. It suggested that the author had not sufficiently substantiated that she
would be exposed to a real, personal and foreseeable risk if she were returned to
Pakistan.
4.3 Regarding the claim in the author’s submission about being at risk of
persecution by a Muslim man, the State party observed that the author had put
forward no information on specific incidents of harassment, referring only to alleged
incidents experienced by her daughter, M.S., and her son. In the proceedings before
the Danish Immigration Service, she had stated that she did not know the identity of
those who had harassed her family. In addition, she had provided no clarification in
her communication to the Committee in that connection. The State party submitted
that the alleged persecution of the author’s daughter and son had no relevance to the
assessment of the author’s submission that returning her to Pakistan would be contrary
to the Convention, given that, according to the jurisprudence of the Committee, for
such a determination to be made, there must exist a personal risk of serious forms of
gender-based violence.
4.4 The State party referred to the inadmissibility decision of the Committee
regarding the case of the author’s daughter (communication No. 40/2012). It noted
that the Committee had found the communication inadmissible owing to the
insufficient substantiation of the claim that the daughter’s removal to Pakistan would
expose her to a real, personal and foreseeable risk of serious forms of gender -based
violence. Given that no new information had been brought to light by the author of the
present communication during the proceedings before the Committee in relation to the
communication submitted by her daughter, and taking into account that the author’s
asylum grounds were derived from those of her daughter, the State party considered
that the present communication should be rejected under article 4 (2) (c) of the
Optional Protocol because the author had failed to substantiate the claim that her
removal to Pakistan would expose her to a real, personal and foreseeable risk of
serious gender-based violence.
4.5 Regarding the author’s statement before the Committee that “all her life [she]
has been subject to sexual harassment because she is a woman belonging to a
Christian minority”, the State party submitted that a claim regarding sexual
harassment had not been raised as a ground per se during the national proceedings.
Notwithstanding that fact, the State party submitted that the author’s allegations
regarding the risk of sexual harassment were in no way substantiated by prima facie
evidence and were not of such a nature as to constitute serious gender-based violence.
__________________
1
4/7
Communication No. 33/2011, M.N.N. v. Denmark, decision of inadmissibility adopted on 15 July
2013, para. 8.10.
15-21608