On the occasion of the International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on the 8th of March, the Völkerrechtsblog celebrates women in international law with the annual ‘Women in International Law’ symposium. The latter takes place every year during the week of the 8th of March and hosts blog posts, interviews and/or podcasts on topics relating to women’s rights, feminist approaches to international law and the struggles of female scholars in international legal academia. This year, the symposium will focus on women in international refugee law and will host a series of blogposts, authored by fellow members of the ‘Women in International Refugee Law’ network, on the contemporary struggles of women and girls seeking asylum and on current developments in this context.
Precisely, Lore Roels’ contribution will kick off the symposium by drawing attention to rape mythology in asylum/non-refoulement procedures and will illustrate how joining a majorette group can even lead one to being denied international protection. Natasha Yacoub will then examine voluntary repatriation through the lens of feminist approaches to evince how the law on voluntary repatriation fails refugee women and how it can be re-imagined to better protect women’s rights. Subsequently, Cristina María Zamora Gómez will propose a feminist reading of the definition of persecution by means of the bifurcated analysis and will analyse the case of child marriages of Afghan girls as a form of gender and child-specific persecution. Finally, Zoe Bantleman will reflect on the recent plans of the United Kingdom’s government that limit territorial asylum and will highlight the inadequacy of resettlement routes for inter alia women fleeing Afghanistan.
We wish all of you an exciting read!
