Citation: 2019 RLLR 169
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: February 12, 2019
Panel: M. Vega
Counsel for the Claimant(s): Mohamed Mahdi
Country: Egypt
RPD Number: TB7-13684
Associated RPD Number(s): N/A
ATIP Number: A-2020-00518
ATIP Pages: 000432- 000436
DECISION
[1] MEMBER: I am prepared to give you a decision at this time, okay.
[2] This is the decision in the claim of XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX file number TB7- 13684. This decision is being rendered orally today and a written form of these reasons may be edited for spelling, syntax, grammar. References to the applicable case law, legislation, and exhibits may also be included.
[3] The claimant claims to be a citizen of Egypt and is claiming refugee protection pursuant to Sections 96 and 97(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
[4] I find that you are a national of Egypt as is established by your testimony and by supporting documentation filed, your passport which is found … a copy of it which is found in Exhibit 1, as well as the … your birth certificate and translation of your birth certificate. And therefore, I conclude, on a balance of probabilities, that you have Egyptian citizenship and that you are whom you claim to be.
[5] I should also mention that your iqama from Saudi Arabi a, a copy of that was also filed in this hearing.
[6] The … Ms XXXX, I find that you are a Convention refugee and my reasons are as follows.
[7] In this case, the nexus to the definition is your gender as a woman who was subjugated to male relatives deciding her marital status as well as her future.
[8] The … sorry, the allegations are contained in your Basis of Claim Form. I will not repeat it all. Just briefly will summarize and say that you were born in Egypt, lived in and completed your schooling in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia while your father was working there. You have a brother and a sister.
[9] When your father fell ill the family moved in 2013 back to Egypt. At which time your father … your father was hospitalized and subsequently died in 2013. At that point intime you and your mother and your sister and your brother, especially the women in the family, came under the care of your mother’s oldest brother as the eldest male of the family, and you were … you had to live with him.
[10] You were treated … as his attitude towards women is one of well, it’s mean and horrific, and you … all of you were made to sleep in one room and you, your mother and your sister were not allowed to join him at the table for dinner but had to eat in the kitchen while your brother was allowed to eat with him, and you had to eat after he ate.
[11] You called him a very conservative man and he was also, according to you, employed by the police department either as an informer or an agent to an informer or to an investigator, but I … the letters from all your relatives confirm that he was somehow an informer of some sort with the police department, or an informant I should say. And therefore … and the police department is not exactly correct word but rather the Ministry of the Interior. And you believe and fear that this man has access to power.
[12] But given also the patriarchal nature of society in Egypt you fear that you could not go against him. And he objected to your studying a university education. He objected to your wanting to study medicine, and you were not allowed to go and study or stay in a girls residence, and you had to commute five hours total each day as you stayed at … in your grandfather’s home which was a little closer than the original plan.
[13] When … whenever you would have to ask for money … he controlled your inheritance. The money was very restricted, and your mother later learned that he had never invested the money but instead had spent it on gambling and drugs.
[14] And so, with all this you felt you were terrified to go to the police and you felt that you could not continue like this.
[15] The … the arguments between him and your mother would … actually had become physical, and he also, besides beating your mother, had beaten you as well.
[16] And so, for all these reasons you fled to United States ’cause you had a US visa there, having traveled there previously, and on a previous occasion years ago. And then from the US you … the plan was you would come to Canada where you have family members here that are caring enough to … that they had gone to try to mediate the situation at one point. Okay.
[17] Okay, just give me a second. In this case, while it is a … a gender claim, the current political situation of … which the documents speak about and which I’m familiar with in Egypt, do not assist women, and therefore any … your uncle having any part of the working in the Ministry of the Interior is something that … on your statements that you’re terrified of going to the police, given what the documentary material states, I find that you have discharged the burden of showing that the State would not protect you.
[18] The onus was on you to do so but given that what the situation is there and the documentary material speaks about this.
[19] Before that I just want to touch on your credibility. I believe that you were a credible witness in this case.
[20] I had some concerns with the certain issues. I found that you answered them in a reasonable manner, and the concerns that I had, had to do with certain things not being completed, forms not being completed as detailed in the … the Immigration documents. But that I don’t find to be material in this case, and therefore I do believe what you are alleging.
[21] I’ve also taken into consideration the letters that you provided from your mother, your aunt, your maternal aunt, your brother, and the uncle here who went there for three weeks with his wife to try to mediate the dispute between the eldest brother and your mother.
[22] So, the documentary material speaks about the situation with respect to women. Under 5.1 it speaks there about harassment of women and how the government brought in a law in 2015 to try to help women.
[23] One of the documents, I think it was in counsel’s package of Exhibit 5. One of his documents speaks about the situation. That’s the BBC article about Egypt: Worse for women out of 22 countries in the Arab world. In there it says a UN report in April … 2013 is this article. In April 2013 said that 99.3 percent of women and girls in Egypt had been subjected to sexual harassment.
[24] The sexual harassment statistics are horrendous, and it’s … therefore the government it appears and of later documents, speaks about this plan that they came up with of trying to deal with sexual harassment and to deal with it by having some protection for women, and unfortunately, this … many women don’t go to the police for it or try … don’t necessarily prosecute … seek persecution of a harasser because in order to do so, to report it, the woman is required by law to catch her attacker and bring him and two other witnesses to the police and then sometimes they have to fight with the police to get the police to write a report.
[25] Now, I know that’s not the situation for you. Your situation, in my opinion, is worse because this is just an example of the government trying to improve the situation as they feel that they are trying to improve it for women.
[26] The documentary material speaks about women who do not conform to certain traditional practices or Muslim practices such as by wearing the niqab, how they are treated. Those are the women that more harassed, and sometimes it goes beyond harassment and becomes assault, and it … it’s known, and the documents mentions about how assault has been dealt with in the past.
[27] So, people in the public also, according to the documentary material, believes that women that are not wearing their head covering should be subjected to harassment, or if they wear tight clothing or they’re not veiled that there … and that there the most vulnerable to that harassment, okay.
[28] So, with all this and given that the situation, as I mentioned the political situation in the country whereby all the documentary materials, the preponderance of it speaks about the deteriorating situation with respect to human rights in the country and the restriction of the rights to freedom of expression, association, peaceful assembly. Many rights have been curtailed.
[29] State protection to women who experience sexual assault, according to Item 1.4 the UK document, that their State protection is limited. The women’s protection is limited. Many sexual crimes go unreported.
[30] Therefore, for … for all these reasons I don’t believe there is adequate State protection for you in Egypt and I don’t believe that you would face a situation different for yourself in … in another part of Egypt because if you were in hiding that’s one thing, but that’s not the type of life that we’re talking about. We’re talking about not hiding. So, as soon as you put in your information, if this relative your uncle would be able to find you and if you could not be protected, that’s not … then that would be persecution. If you would … if you would try to force you to marry someone against your will, okay.
[31] Therefore, for all these reasons … because you can’t ask the Government of Egypt for protection as the documentary materials do speak about how they take this … the situation of home or family situations, domestic situations to be a family matter and therefore you would not find protection.
[32] One document in the counsel’s Exhibit 5 or that same document I was referring to also speaks about … where it says here, there are whole villages on the outskirts of Cairo and elsewhere where the bulk of economic activity is based on trafficking in women and forced marriages. And this was … was stated by Zahra Radwan of the US based group … US based rights group Global Fund for Women.
[33] Okay. And that’s … and therefore it is my opinion for all of these reasons that you, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX, are a Convention refugee and I therefore accept your claim. Do you understand?
COUNSEL: Thank you.
MEMBER: Thank you. Thanks, Madam Interpreter. And good day everyone. This hearing is now concluded.
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