CEDAW/C/50/D/26/2010
1.3
On 4 October 2010, the Committee requested the State party not to deport the author
and her two minor children, K.E.R.H. and D.R.H., to Mexico while her case was pending
before the Committee.
Facts as presented by the author
2.1
The author claims that she has been the victim of conjugal violence for more than 12
years. She was married on 16 August 1996, and had two children. The family came to Canada
on 11 September 2006, and claimed refugee status on 21 September 2006.1 Their claim was
dismissed on 11 January 2008 on the ground that it lacked credibility. On 23 July 2008, their
application for judicial review of their negative asylum decision before the Federal Court of
Canada was dismissed.
2.2
In April 2008 (between the negative decision of their refugee claim and the dismissal
of their application for judicial review), after an incident of conjugal violence and years of
physical, psychological and sexual abuse in Mexico, the United States of America and then
Canada, the author reported the incident to the police2 and separated from her husband. She
took refuge in a women’s shelter in Montreal from 25 April to 1 August 2008. A women’s
association, “Assistance aux femmes”, convinced of the author’s suffering and danger to
herself and her children at the hands of her husband, filed on her behalf a pre-removal risk
assessment (PRRA) with Immigration Canada on 1 October 2008, and a humanitarian and
compassionate grounds (H&C) application on 27 October 2008. With the H&C application,
“Assistance aux femmes” submitted the author’s declaration, describing life with her husband,
and the violence she and her children endured. They also filed a social worker’s report
containing their observations on the author and her children and their assessment of the
negative impact of the violence they suffered. Based on the author’s husband behaviour,
history of violence, death threats, and the fact that there is inadequate State protection in
Mexico,3 “Assistance aux femmes” concluded that the author and her children were at risk in
Mexico. The H&C application was dismissed on the ground that the author and her children
would not face unusual and undeserved or disproportionate hardship if they were to return.
2.3
In November 2008, the author’s husband threatened to kill the author if she failed to
return to him, and he also threatened to commit suicide. The author sought assistance from the
Montreal police, and, upon finding a knife in her husband’s possession, they immediately
detained him and sent him for psychiatric evaluation. One month later, the author’s husband
managed to identify the shelter in which the author and her children had taken refuge, and
contacted the social worker in charge, pretending to be a family friend, and claiming that the
author was lying and had never been a victim of conjugal violence, and was using the shelter
to stay in Canada. All this was new information, which had not been submitted to Immigration
Canada within the PRRA and H&C applications submitted in October 2008.
2.4
On 16 January 2009, the Canadian authorities deported the author’s husband to
Mexico. On 3 September 2009, the author divorced from her husband, and obtained legal
custody of her minor children. According to family members, since his deportation to Mexico
in January 2009, the author’s husband was seen on many occasions watching the author’s
__________________
1
2
3
The family’s claim for asylum related to allegations by the author’s ex-spouse that he faced extortion by
police, in connection with a snack bar he had opened, as well as additional threats from the family of an
individual he had killed in a car accident.
Without filing a complaint against him.
Relying on a report from Amnesty International entitled “Women’s struggle for safety and
justice-violence in the family in Mexico”, of 1 August 2008.
3