Violence and forced prostitution

Concerning Y.W. vs. Denmark for violation of articles 1, 2, 3, 12 and 15 of CEDAW.

The author, a Chinese national born in 1967, left China for more than 8 years ago due to her spouse who was lending a great amount of money from criminals due to his gambling issue. This resulted in the author being threatened, raped, burned with hot oil and pressured to work as a prostitute in China. According to her, she was on her own and could not seek protection by the police. The author had no family in China and she couldn’t manage her financial living due to her lack of education. Concluding that her situation was unbearable she fled the country. After fleeing China the author travelled in different countries, she came to Denmark in 2008 and applied for asylum in 2010. Her asylum application got rejected by the Danish authorities as manifestly ill founded by decision as of May 2010. After the decision, the author stayed in an asylum refugee camp as “rejected asylum seeker”. In October 2012 she was arrested and has stayed in detention since then, with the purpose of forced deportation.

If deported, the author fears that due to the fact that she escaped before she had paid the money and worked in prostitution, the same people will find her, since they are part of a criminal network. She could risk to be killed as revenge or raped and forced into prostitution in order for her to earn back the money that they want her to pay.

It was found by the Committee that the communication is inadmissible. Read the attached PDF for more details. 

22. July 2021

CEDAW 51/2013
  • Decision: 13. April 2015
  • Comm: Gender