CEDAW/C/73/D/94/2015
Background
1.1 The author is A.N.A., a Somali national born in 1988. She sought asylum in
Denmark, her application was rejected and she risks deportation to Somalia. She
claims that, if Denmark proceeds with her deportation, it would violate articles 3 , 5
and 16 (b) of the Convention. 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, Rabih Azad -Ahmed.
1.2 In her initial submission, the author asked the Committee to request Denmark
to halt her deportation. On 16 September 2015, when registering the communication,
the Committee asked Denmark not to deport her, pending the consideration of her
case. On 25 September 2015, the Refugee Appeals Board of Denmark suspended the
author’s deportation.
Facts as submitted by the author
2.1 The author is a Somali citizen from Masagaway, in the Galguduud region of
central Somalia. She is married with three children. In July 2014, a member of
Al-Shabaab asked her father to allow her to marry him, but the father refused; the
request was repeated on several occasions. Owing to her father ’s refusal, the family
was persecuted. On one occasion, when the author returned from the village ma rket,
a member of Al-Shabaab tried to forcibly take her away from her father. The author
managed to escape but, when she returned later, she learned that her father had been
murdered.
2.2 Al-Shabaab members returned 10 days after her father’s murder. While the
author was not at home, her husband, mother-in-law and children were there. The
members took the author’s husband away. When she returned, it became clear to her
that she would need to flee with her husband and children or risk either being killed
or forcibly married.
2.3 The author sought asylum in Denmark in August 2014. 1 Her first asylum claim
was rejected by the Immigration Service of Denmark, and she was informed of the
refusal in a letter dated 21 July 2015. The decision was confirmed by the Ref ugee
Appeals Board on 4 September 2015. The rejection by the authorities was based on
credibility issues. The Board found that it seemed unlikely that Al -Shabaab would
wait until six years 2 after the author’s marriage to visit her and that the author seemed
to have provided diverging versions of the rationale behind the Al -Shabaab members’
visits and was evasive about the circumstances surrounding her father ’s death, failing
to reveal whether she or anyone else was present when it happened. The authorities
also doubted that she had lived her whole life in central Somalia and therefore whether
she was actually from Masagaway. In addition, they doubted that the author was being
truthful, given that she seemed to be evasive with regard to the rationale for
Al-Shabaab representatives coming to see her after her father ’s death.
2.4 The author highlights that Denmark has an agreement with the Somali
authorities regarding the obligation of Somalia to take back its own citizens,
notwithstanding objections from the United Nations regarding forced returns to
southern and central Somalia, which are still under the influence of military war and
fighting by the terrorist group. It is not verified whether author ’s area of origin has
been liberated, and the Refugee Appeals Board may have overlooked the possibility
that the region is still under the influence of the terror group.
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1
2
2/11
No information was provided on how the author had arrived in Denmark.
According to the documents on file, Al-Shabaab took control of the region following a major
civil war around 2007.
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