Background information
on gender and asylum issues4

The Case of Ms. O

Ms. O- is a 21-year-old ethnic Russian woman living in a former Soviet Republic who was abducted by a local organized crime leader who wanted her to engage in sexual relations with him. When she refused, she was raped by him and then gang-raped by three or four of his friends. O- was then forced on a nightly basis to have sex with his friends and guests at one of his homes. At first she tried to resist, but was raped anyway by his guests. Her captor told her that "you're now working for me, and you're my property." He also told her that "once you're here, the only way out of here is being carried out feet first." Three regular visitors observed by O- were the local district attorney, police chief, and mayor; on more than one occasion, O- was raped by the mayor and the chief of police. When O- did not cooperate, she was beaten. O-'s parents went to the police and reported her missing, but were unable to gain any cooperation.

The first time O- tried to escape, she was caught and beaten. Later, her captor bet her as an asset in a card game with another organized crime leader from Moscow; he lost the game, and forcibly handed her over to the man, who was planning to traffic her to Israel or Turkey for prostitution. The driver who was transporting O- helped her to escape. When she reached safety, she tried to telephone the driver to tell him she was safe. The organized crime leader answered and told her that the driver had been murdered for helping her, that B- knew where she was and that his people would find her. O- fled to the United States and applied for asylum. O- is seeking counseling from a rape crisis center.

At her February 7, 2000, hearing, the Immigration Judge (IJ) found Ms. O- to be credible, and accepted as true all facts in her case, including the opinion of a country expert that, if returned, "she would either be abducted again and again subject to torture and forced prostitution ..., or, more likely, be targeted for ritualized execution." The IJ nevertheless denied asylum, as he did not find that the persecution O- endured to be "on account of" one of the five grounds for asylum. Ms. O-'s attorney appealed from the denial of asylum, and the Board of Immigration Appeals granted O- asylum after the Department of Homeland Security withdrew its opposition.

UPDATE: In April 2003, the BIA granted asylum to Ms. O. after the DHS withdrew its opposition.

The Case of Ms. M-J-

M- J- is a young woman from China who was made to enter a brothel, and managed to escape before she was forced to engage in sexual relations with the brothel's customers. She was working in a hotel where the manager had been making inappropriate advances that she had been warding off. One night he got her alone and touched her inappropriately and then grabbed her and embraced her by force. She called out and struggled, afraid he was about to rape her, but he did not let her go and no one came to help her. In a desperate attempt to defend herself, she grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed him in the thigh. She then broke free and ran away. The hotel guards caught her and the police arrested her. The police held her for a month and told her she was facing three years in jail for assaulting the manager. When she told the police about the manager's unwanted and forcible advances, a police officer replied that she should be happy to have the attention of a man with wealth and status and that she should have cooperated with him.

The police never investigated M-'s accusation regarding the manager's sexual assault upon her. Although she never had a trial, she was told that she faced a three-year sentence for stabbing the manager. The manager demanded money in exchange for agreeing to drop the charges against M-. When her parents said that they could not afford to pay, the manager said that M- could work off the debt by working in a hair salon. The salon turned out to be a front for a brothel run with the cooperation of the police. The girls at the salon were ordered to have sexual relations with the brothel's customers. If they resisted they would be drugged and forced to service the clients. M- saw that women who resisted were beaten. Neither she nor any of the women working there were allowed to leave. Two people in charge told her to watch and learn how to be nice to the clients.

Because M- was young and a virgin, the other women working at the brothel helped her to escape before she was forced to service any clients. M- fled to the United States via Hong Kong. Since fleeing the brothel, the police have come looking for her at her parents' house.

The Immigration Judge (IJ) found M- credible and referred to the corroborating evidence that the client had submitted in support of her case, including documentation regarding the pervasive existence of forced prostitution in China. The IJ stated that even if M- had been found guilty of assault, being sent to a brothel to be forcibly prostituted is an inappropriate punishment and as such constituted persecution. The IJ analogized the case to the Board of Immigration Appeal's (BIA) decision in Kasinga where the board had granted asylum to a woman from Togo who feared forcibly female genital mutilation.

See Lisa Margonelli, We Don't Care About Women, Jane Magazine, March 2001.

UPDATE: In April 2001, the BIA granted asylum to Ms. M!