Woman who endured ‘living hell’ of sex abuse in Sri Lanka granted refugee status

People board a crowded bus in Colombo, Sri Lanka. A woman has been granted refugee status in New Zealand partly because of the sexual harassment she is likely to experience on public transport in her home country. Photo / The New York Times

A woman whose life was made a “living hell” by a sexually abusive neighbour in Sri Lanka has been granted refugee status, allowing her to stay in New Zealand.

The woman told the Immigration and Protection Tribunal if she was made to return to Sri Lanka, she would also be likely to suffer sexual assault on public transport or at work.

She said that as an asexual single woman, who did not want to get married but wished to have a child by in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), she might be mistaken for a lesbian, which would lead to threats and further harassment.

The woman is in her 30s, had lived in an urban area near Sri Lanka’s largest city, Colombo, and came to New Zealand as a student.

Her father has died and the other members of her immediate family live outside Sri Lanka.

The tribunal found that the woman, only identified in its published decision as HV, was a victim of sexual assaults with no family support in her home country and a “well-founded” fear of suffering further sexual harassment.

This, it said, met the “serious harm” threshold required for refugee status under the international Refugee Convention.

HV told the tribunal that she had been sexually assaulted by a neighbour, the father of a friend, over a period of nearly four years between the ages of 10 and 14.

She said that he had made her life a “living hell” and threatened to kill her parents if she told anyone.

HV said that she had also been subjected to sexual assault repeatedly on buses when travelling to study or work.

“The appellant understands that such unwanted sexual harassment, including touching, is common for women in Sri Lanka,” tribunal member Debra Smallholme said.

“She considers that some women can cope with it better than others. She could not cope at all. It was ‘a dark hole’ that made her ‘life dirty and disgusting and brought back memories of abuse’,” Smallholme said.

“She remains nervous, suspicious and vigilant when on public transport.”

Smallholme cited an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade report which said that 90 per cent of Sri Lankan women and girls had suffered sexual harassment on public buses and trains.

There was little state protection to deter the men, whose actions were condoned by “gender-based socio-cultural settings”, she said.

Smallholme said that HV also wished to conceive a child by IVF while a single woman and feared that if she did so she would not be accepted and nor would her child.

The tribunal found this fear of harm as a single mother “speculative” and the risk remote. It said access to IVF was not a right protected by the Refugee Convention.

Nor did it consider she had a well-founded fear of persecution due to her Christian faith.

However, the tribunal found that HV was entitled to be recognised as a refugee because of the risk of further sexual harm.

“The Tribunal has considered whether it would be possible for the appellant to relocate (within Sri Lanka) such that she could access and enjoy meaningful domestic protection,” Smallholme said.

“However, there is no such place because the entrenched negative societal attitudes towards women are pervasive.

“There would be no respite available for the appellant from these attitudes through a change in her physical location within the country.”