Last updated on July 3rd, 2023 at 05:02 am

Concerning M.E.N. vs Denmark for violation of articles 1, 2 (c), 2 (d) and 3 of CEDAW.

The author is from Burundi born in 1988. She was an active member of FNL (Front National de Libération) and in her town a lot of other people was also members. In the wake of a conflict between the political parties and the election in 2010, her town was bombed by air. During the chaos she was separated from her husband and was forced to flee alone. On the way she was raped by three men. She assumed that her aggressors were not members of FNL, as all the FNL members in her town were about to flee or had already fled. She arrived in Denmark on 22 August 2010 and was refused asylum on 28 April 2011. She referred to her membership of an opposition party as the reason for being wanted in her country of origin. The Committee observes that even the alleged rape was not raised as a ground per se in support of her application for asylum. Instead, during the asylum interviews, when questioned about the alleged rape, the author stated that she did not know the identity of the perpetrators, nor why they had raped her in particular, and added that she believed that it was coincidental that she had been raped. Consequently, the State party’s authorities had no opportunity to consider her gender-based allegations, which are at the heart of her communication. Accordingly, the Committee finds the present communication inadmissible.