Asylum – appeal – membership in a particular social group (single woman) – Iraq – 2018

The claimant, a woman from Iraq, argued that while her husband was always protective and supportive of her, he would never stand up to his family who disliked and abused her. The couple were able to escape their problems for a time after they moved  to the United States of America where the husband was studying. When the husband decided that they would have to return to Iraq together for his research, the claimant fled to Canada and made a refugee claim. She argued that she could not return to Iraq because she feared her husband’s family, and that if her claim in Canada were refused she would be at additional risk both from the family, because she would be seen as a disobedient wife who left her husband, and because it is very difficult to live alone as a single woman in Iraq. 

The Refugee Protection Division refused her claim, unable to believe that her husband’s family would harm her, when her own husband was accepting and protective of her. The decision maker also failed to understand the cultural context of Iraq, where living as a single woman alone was essentially impossible. 

Anchor Law assisted the claimant in demonstrating the errors of this decision to the Refugee Appeal Division, and succeeded in having the decision overturned. The claimant was given protection in Canada and allowed to stay.