Citation: 2019 RLLR 47
Tribunal: Refugee Protection Division
Date of Decision: March 21, 2019
Panel: B. Popatia
Counsel for the claimant(s): Vanessa M. Leigh
Country: Hungary
RPD Number: TB6-18781
ATIP Number: A-2020-01274
ATIP Pages: 000050-000054
[1] MEMBER: [XXX] you are a citizen of Hungary who claims Convention refugee status and refugee protection in Canada based on your alleged well-founded fear of persecution in Hungary for Convention reasons and the alleged risk there to your life risk of cruel and unusual treatment, or danger of torture.
[2] You state that you are at risk of serious harm in Hungary at the hands of various agents of persecution based on your Roma ethnicity, female gender, young age, and family status. You allege that were you to return to Hungary you would continue to experience serious harm without the prospect of effective state protection there.
[3] I determine you to be a Convention refugee. In my view there has been supplied sufficient reliable evidence on which to find that you have a well-founded fear of persecution in Hungary for Convention reasons.
[4] It has been established that there is more than a mere possibility that were you to return to Hungary you would experience the serious harm of persecution, either cumulatively or in isolation, harm that would continue to have on you a substantially prejudicial effect, physically or morally.
[5] I am satisfied that there has been supplied clear and convincing confirmation of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect you based on your particular circumstances and prevailing country conditions.
Analysis
Identity
[6] I am satisfied that you have the personal, national, ethnic, gender and other identity alleged in the claim. You came to Canada with family and made a refugee claim within weeks of your arrival. You testified in the Hungarian language through an interpreter at the hearing. You provided extensive oral testimony, written documentation and allegations in an affidavit and in your Basis of Claim form that credibly situates you within a Hungarian context.
[7] You state that with the exception of a short period of time in Germany to visit a close family member you have lived only in Hungary and Canada. You came to Canada on your own Hungarian travel document that was issued in 2016. A copy of that document is before me and at the Port of Entry and at the time that you made your refugee claim inland, there does not appear to have been any concern about your nationality as a Hungarian citizen. Extensive personal documentation has also been filed from Hungary.
[8] I’m also satisfied that your Roma background has been established on the balance of probabilities. Here too the testimony and written declarations you have provided situate you within a reliable Roma context.
[9] You have stated that while you don’t know or understand how and why you were identified as a Roma, you testified that it could be because of your dark or brown skin even though you stated that it is not that brown. It is clear, however, that you have been closely associated with Roma persons, including close family members and that you have experienced individual and collective mistreatment, likely based on your Roma ethnicity and at times because of that ethnicity and your female gender and young age. You stated that when a close family member was mistreated, it was as if you were being abused.
[10] You’ve conceded that you did not know the sub-group of Roma that either your mother or father belonged to but stated that they both have Roma background. You also testified that a large number of your family members have come to Canada and somehow or the other have received permanent status in Canada.
[11] Your claim was made with your father and your elder brother. Your father’s claim was disjoined from yours because you were alleging serious harm in Hungary on grounds beyond your ethnic background and that it could be uncomfortable and difficult for you to participate in your hearing with your father present. That request was granted.
[12] You testified about your education and stated that you got to grade [XXX] but because you did not complete one of the final exams, that having to do with language and literature, you would be unable to continue your education in Hungary. While this may have limited basis, I do accept that based on your own personal mistreatment over many years throughout grade school, your family economic and social experience, and other factors, it would be impracticable for you to expect that you would be able to continue your education in Hungary, at least at the university level.
[13] You stated that you believed that your literature teacher was racist and anti-Roma and did not permit you to write the final exam even though a fellow student, a non-Rome was permitted to sit the final exam despite absence for about half the school year.
[14] When counsel asked you if you had been sexually harassed in Hungary you responded affirmatively. It was deemed unnecessary to have you elaborate on that in oral testimony.
[15] I have your written declarations and based on my assessment of your credibility, your identity and other aspects of your claim throughout the hearing, I’m satisfied that more likely than not you have had the gender-based mistreatment alleged.
[16] Your residential identity is also compelling. You testified that on two occasions about a year apart, you, your father and your elder brother were evicted. You testified that your nuclear family has never owned any property in Hungary and that you have only rented accommodation from the city. In your written declarations you have cited at least three or four residential addresses in and around Budapest and you confirmed those street addresses when you gave testimony in the hearing.
[17] You stated that local authorities relocated you from your rental accommodation, promising to allow you to return once the renovations were concluded, but neither you nor any other Roma family were permitted to go back to that renovated building.
[18] You were then evicted from the other building that you had been relocated to and at that time you father, having an interest in fishing, lived in a tent with your elder brother beside the lake. You moved in for a period of time with a friend of yours you described as your best friend. You stated spontaneously that this friend was non-Roma.
[19] You testified that Roma experience mistreatment in the health care system and while your own experience in the health care system appears to have been more positive most times, at least based on your own testimony, you did concede that that would be one of the reasons for you to fear returning to Hungary. If you were able to pay large amounts of money to physicians you would receive medical care but you stated and fear that if you were to return to Hungary based on your age and other circumstances you would not qualify for health and other social benefits.
[20] You testified about your recreational life, street life, life on the street cars and stated that you had been mistreated by groups of racist men and that among incidents of mistreatment, that you and closely situated persons including family members experienced. Your elder brother was thrown off public transit and suffered a concussion but received no police help.
[21] You testified that you fear the police themselves, the very agents one could rely on for protection. When asked why you had this fear you stated that they did not provide any material assistance to you or those you knew. On one occasion although a family member of your experienced mistreatment and made a police report, promises to keep you informed were not met by the police.
[22] Years earlier a close relative experienced serious harm at the hands of her male partner. Despite repeated incidents by him against her, he was given merely a fine for all of that ordeal.
Credibility
[23] I find that you have been a credible witness in the proceeding. You provided testimony spontaneously, directly and with the ring of truth. At times it contained extensive detail. Your testimony conformed with the written declarations in all material areas of the claim. I find that you did not embellish or exaggerate. These are the hallmarks of reliable testimony in my view.
[24] You also maintained eye contact consistently and had a somber disposition in the hearing.
Objective basis
[25] In my view there is a credible objective basis to your allegations. The country conditions documents from wide variety of sources, having no interest in the outcome of your proceeding, indicate that each of the forms of mistreatment you have referred to continues to impact Roma communities in Hungary and that Roma continue to experience serious forms of mistreatment, including discrimination, harassment, humiliation, marginalisation and exclusion in every sector of their civic lives: education, employment, housing, recreation, heath care.
[26] Sources agree and you also stated in various ways, repeatedly throughout the hearing and in your written claim, that Roma experience serious personal insecurity. This is despite periods of serious efforts by the state to improve conditions for Roma and other national minorities in Hungary and to orient front line police officials and other state authorities on providing improved response and assistance to Roma communities and communities of national minorities in Hungary.
[27] In view, although you fear serious physical harm were you to return to Hungary, such as from interactions with street groups, it is sufficient that you fear serious discrimination across the sectors of your civic life and there is a reliable objective basis to those fears. These social and economic risks are such that frontline police cannot be expected to provide protection against, and indeed, no state authority can provide immediate response for such conditions. Extensive social and political change would be required for greater security, in your case in particular.
[28] In my view, were you to return to Hungary, there is more than a mere possibility that you would experience the serious harm of persecution cumulatively. There’s clear and convincing confirmation of the state’s inability or unwillingness to protect you. Accordingly I determine you to be a Convention refugee. The Division therefore accepts your claim.
[29] That’s it for this hearing. Thank you, Mr. Interpreter.
[30] INTERPRETER: Thank you.
[31] MEMBER: Counsel. All the best to you, Ms. XXXX.
[32] CLAIMANT: Thank you very much.
[33] MEMBER: Off the record.
– – – DECISION CONCLUDED – – –