Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-16-Speech-2-199"
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"en.20010116.11.2-199"2
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".
I wish to say in response to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo’s question that refugee status is governed throughout the world by the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees. At European level, a non-binding common position of 4 March 1996 adopted under the Maastricht Treaty applies; this relates to uniform application of the term “refugee” under the terms of Article 1 of the 1951 Geneva Convention. However, there is no uniform application of the definition of the term “refugee” throughout Member States.
Neither the 1951 Convention nor the European Union texts make specific reference to issues concerning requests made by women, specifically women whose human rights have been violated, with particular reference to gender-related abuse, such as sexual violence, genital mutilation or fundamental legal discrimination on the grounds of their gender.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union now has, following Tampere, a mandate to adopt common minimum rules in the field of asylum and refugee protection, with a view, in the medium term, to adopting a common European asylum system. The Commission intends to table specific proposals in relation to some of these in the course of 2001. These proposals will take account of the specific circumstances of women who have been victims of abuse and mistreatment. Indeed, the Commission has already begun to develop actions designed to address the specific circumstances of these women. An example of this is the proposal for a directive on providing temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons, which we presented on 24 May last year.
In this proposal, under the terms of Article 11(4), Member States are obliged to provide appropriate medical assistance or other forms of assistance to women who have been victims of torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence.
By the same token, the Commission’s proposal on minimum standards to apply to the process of granting and withdrawing refugee status, which the Commission adopted on 20 September 2000, contains various provisions addressing the specific needs of women, such as Article 4(4), which lays down that women have the right to present a request for asylum separately from their husband, or Article 3(8), which enshrines the principle of an independent and separate interview for women when presenting a request for asylum. There is also Article 7(8), which gives women the right to have a different interviewer or interpreter if they feel inhibited about explaining the reasons for their request for asylum due to the fact that the interviewer or interpreter is male, particularly in situations of sexual abuse and, finally, Article 14(1)(c), which lays down the obligation on Member States to guarantee that staff interviewing persons in a vulnerable situation are given the necessary basic training to deal with the specific problems of these women.
The Commission also intends to propose measures concerning persons with special needs in its proposal for a directive on reception conditions for asylum seekers, which will be presented in the first quarter of this year. With regard to the specific issue of gender-related persecution forming the basis of the asylum request, the Commission has already embarked on extensive consultation on this matter and we hope that in the course of this year we will be able to draw the necessary conclusions to present to Parliament and the Council a proposal for subsidiary protection that would also cover this type of situation."@en1
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