| A poster of the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation / Screen captured from World Health Organization |
By Bahk Eun-ji
A high court has ruled that a Sierra Leonean woman who came to Korea to avoid female genital mutilation should be granted refugee status because the practice is violation of human rights. The Gwangju High Court overturned a lower court decision that ruled against the 38-year-old woman who filed the suit to counter the Gwangju Immigration Office's decision not to recognize her as a refugee.
“Circumcision is a practice that inflicts pain to a women's body and infringes on human dignity, and is a persecution someone has to suffer because she is a member of a specific group,” the court said. “There is sufficient grounds for fear and a high chance of being circumcised against her will if the woman is repatriated.”
The Sierra Leone woman converted to Christianity in 2009 after attending a Catholic school in her home country, but was pressured by her mother to join a traditional religious group that circumcises women. Her mother was one of the leaders of the group and wanted the woman to succeed her position after undergoing genital cutting.
The woman refused and was assaulted by people of the religious group several times in April 2019. She said she reported this to the police, but was not protected because of the religious group's great influence in her country.
After receiving death threats, she came to Korea in September 2019. After 23 days in the country, she applied for refugee status with the immigration office.
But the office rejected her application, saying fear of female genital mutilation did not constitute “enough grounds that she may be persecuted.”
She then filed an administrative suit with the Gwangju District Court to annul the immigration office's decision. But the local court ruled against her, saying she failed to present evidence of her claims and it was unlikely she was persecuted because of race, religion, nationality, membership in a specific social group or political opinion ― factors applied in deciding whether to grant refugee status.
However, the appeals court overturned the lower court's ruling, saying she had been pressured to succeed her mother's position as a leader of the group and that she had been kidnapped and assaulted because she refused to do so.
“She was at risk of being circumcised in her familial, regional and social circumstances, and she has stated this situation consistently,” the court said. “Her statement that her life could be in danger if she refuses to succeed her mother in the post is also consistent with the results of the United Nations Refugee Agency's fact-finding.”
“She also didn't seem to have other cause for entry to Korea than the attempt to avoid circumcision, and she may face the same pressure for genital mutilation even if she moves to other regions in Sierra Leone because the nation has no law prohibiting the practice,” the court said. “So we recognize there are sufficient grounds that she could be persecuted.”