A woman, even if she is a minor, may benefit from international protection in the European Union if she invokes the effective identification of equality between women and men that occurred during a stay in an EU Member State, ruled the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in a judgment handed down on Tuesday 11 June (case C-646/21).
Two Iraqi teenagers who have been living in the Netherlands since 2015 are challenging the Dutch authorities’ rejection of their application for international protection. They feel that they have adopted the norms and behaviour of young people their own age and that they are unable to comply with the rules of a society that does not grant women the same rights as men if they are forced to return to Iraq.
When asked by the Dutch courts to interpret Directive 2011/95/EC on the qualification and status of third-country nationals as refugees, the CJEU ruled that women, including minors, who share the fundamental value of equality between men and women occurring during their stay in a Member State can, depending on the conditions prevailing in the country of origin, be considered as belonging to a “particular social group” as a “reason for persecution” capable of leading to recognition of refugee status.
The European Court states that if an applicant for international protection is a minor, the national authorities must necessarily take account of her best interests when examining the application individually. In addition, when assessing an application for international protection based on a persecution ground such as “membership of a particular social group”, a long-term stay in an EU Member State may be taken into account, especially when it coincides with a period during which a minor applicant has formed his or her identity.
See the Court’s ruling: https://aeur.eu/f/cm1 (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)