Reading Comprehension

PT110 · S1 · P4 · Q19 Women Refugees

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When women are persecuted on account of their gender, they are likely to be eligible for asylum.

Topic

Eligibility of women facing gender-based persecution for refugee status under international law.

Framework

Answer / Explain

Main Point

Women persecuted for their gender can qualify for asylum as part of the "social group" category in the UN's refugee definition, and this broad, flexible category was intentionally created to ensure such individuals are protected. The Most Valuable Sentence:—the end of paragraph 1:

P1: Establishing the Central Question and Position

Sets up the issue: gender is not explicitly listed in the refugee definition, but women suffering gender-based persecution do qualify under “social group.” The history of the definition shows that “social group” was designed as a catch-all for those otherwise left out.

P2: Historical Background on the “Social Group” Category

Explains where the "social group" category came from. The original refugee definition didn’t include it—the United Nations later added it as a flexible category to cover cases not neatly fitting the more specific criteria.

P3: Supporting the Broad Interpretation of Social Group

The UN’s Handbook and subsequent documents promote a broad, inclusive understanding of “social group.” This supports the idea that women fleeing gender-based persecution should qualify for asylum, especially since UN documents specifically encourage using this category for women in such situations.

19.

According to the passage, which one of the following is true about both the United Nations Convention and the UNHCR Handbook?

  1. Both documents are likely to

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: likely strong improvement Unsupported: Convention There is some language in the final paragraph that the UNHCR made a pronouncement that is "likely to exert a strong influence" on the international community. But that referred to a pronouncement made in 1985 by the UNHCR Executive Committee, and it doesn't specifically say it will "improve the status of women in UN member states". We could possibly stretch this answer to apply to the Handbook, but we don't have anything in the 2nd paragraph about the Convention to suggest that the author thinks it's likely to exert a strong influence on improving the status of women.

    2% picked this

  2. Both documents explicitly support granting

    Out of Scope: explicitly

    Both documents include a generic category called "social group" that can be used to grant refugee status to women fleeing gender-based persecution, but neither of them have an explicit category for women.

    2% picked this

  3. Both documents recommend using the

    Too Strong: recommended for women

    The second paragraph, which is our only support text for the Convention never even mentions the word "women". The idea is that the "social-group" category can be used for women seeking asylum, when they don't fall into any other defined category. But it's too much to say that the documents themselves recommend using social-group to classify women refugees. Some women will qualify for refugee status because of race, religion, nationality, or political opinion. And the inclusion of social-group is intended to cover groups "such as women facing gender-based persecution, who are otherwise not covered".

    17% picked this

  4. Correct

    Both documents suggest that the

    Why this is right

    The Convention included the term 'social group' to provide a "safety net" for anyone who fails to fall neatly into an enumerated category. They left the precise boundaries of the category undefined to make sure the term would "retain the flexibility necessary to address unanticipated situations. Both of those ideas suggest that this category could be applied to a wide variety of asylum-seekers. And the first sentence of the 3rd paragraph says that the Handbook also supports "a broad interpretation of social group".

    Skill tested: Locate Detail · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    72% picked this

  5. Both documents describe a social

    Contradicted

    The definition of "social group" in the Convention is left intentionally vague, so that it can be a catch-all for anyone that deserves asylum but doesn't fall into a predefined category. This answer sounds somewhat like language we get to describe the Handbook's definition of social group, but that one is "share a common background or habits or social status. This is saying that social group means, "people who share a similar background and hold a similar status in society"

    8% picked this

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