CEDAW/C/69/D/85/2015
Decision on admissibility
1.1 The author of the communication is S.F.A, a Somali national born in 1988. The
communication is submitted in her name and on behalf of her son, H.H.M., born in
2013. The author sought asylum in Denmark, her application was rejected and, at the
time of submission of the communication, she was awaiting deportation from
Denmark to Somalia. She claims that such deportation would constitute a violation
by the State party of articles 1, 2 (d), 12, 15 and 16 of the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Convention and the
Optional Protocol thereto entered into force for the State party on 21 May 1983 and
22 December 2000, respectively. The author is represented by counsel, Niels -Erik
Hansen.
1.2 On 23 April 2015, the Committee, acting through its Working Group on
Communications under the Optional Protocol, requested the State party to refrain
from expelling the author and her son to Somalia while the communication was under
consideration by the Committee, pursuant to article 5 (1) of the Optional Protocol and
rule 63 of the Committee’s rules of procedure. On 27 April 2015, the Refugee Appeals
Board suspended the time limit for the departure of the author and her son from
Denmark until further notice in accordance with the Committee ’s request.
1.3 On 7 July 2016 and 7 September 2017, the Committee denied the State party’s
requests to lift the interim measures.
Factual background 1
2.1 The author is an ethnic Somali and a member of the main clan of Shikhal,
subclan of Loboge and sub-subclan of Agane. Her family remaining in Somalia
consists of parents, two brothers, two paternal uncles and their families, a maternal
aunt and two paternal aunts and their children. 2 The author is of the Muslim faith. As
a child, she was subjected to female genital mutilation.
2.2 The author’s father wanted to marry her forcibly to an older man whom he knew
living abroad. Against her family’s wishes, she had a relationship with H., whom she
had met at school in Buulobarde, which they were both attending when she was about
15 or 16 years old. They had continued to have a secret relationship either at the home
of N., the author’s friend and neighbour, or in the fields surrounding Buulobarde until
2007, when the author became pregnant to H. and had an abortion with her mother ’s
help. The author’s mother told the author’s paternal aunt about the pregnancy and
abortion. She also suggested that the author should be circumcised again in order to
keep her father from finding out about her relationship with H., given that he was still
planning to marry her to the man to whom she had been promised as a child. The
author accepted her mother’s suggestion and was circumcised again one and a half
months after the abortion. 3
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The factual background has been reconstructed on the basis of the author ’s own incomplete
account, reports on the author’s asylum screening interview of 11 February 2014, her first
substantive interview of 23 May 2014 and second substantive interview of 17 June 2014 with the
Danish Immigration Service, the decision of the Service of 19 January 2015, the decision of the
Refugee Appeals Board of 8 April 2015 and other supporting documents available on file.
Information is taken from the author’s asylum screening interview of 11 February 2014.
According to the author’s substantive interview of 23 May 2014, three of her paternal aunts died
in the spring of 2014 as a result of an explosion in connection with local fighting between
Al-Shabaab and the Government.
According to the author’s second substantive interview of 17 June 2014, she was not circumcised
again, but rather “stitched up” by the same woman who had performed female genital mutilation
on her when she had been 5 years old.
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