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Mojgan belongs to one of the world's most oppressed groups, and Dutton wants to send her home

Ruby Hamad

Women's rights are human rights. So they tell us. And yet, as the story of one woman's nightmarish experience at the hands of Australia's asylum seeker policy demonstrates, there is very little being done to safeguard their rights or to assist them when they seek help.

 This week's Australian Story showcased just one of the many women entrapped in Australia's nightmarish asylum seeker policy.

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MP's tears for Mojgan

Mark Bailey makes an emotional plea in parliament for Iranian refugee Mojgan Shamsalipoor, a Brisbane student in a detention centre. March 16, 2016

Mojgan Shamsalipoor, a 22-year-old Iranian refugee, was released last September on a temporary bridging visa after spending almost two years in detention.

Although married to a fellow Iranian refugee who has been granted a permanent visa, and facing almost certain violence in her home country, the government announced Mojgan is part of a group of asylum seekers who, although granted bridging visas, "are not refugees and are expected to return to their countries of origin. They will not have access to permanent stay visas."

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The question is, why does Mojgan not fit the requirement for a "real" refugee?

According to Mojgan, she was raped as a teenager by her stepfather, who, claiming the rape was consensual, attempted to force her into an arranged marriage to a much older man in order to save her reputation. Her mother encouraged her to flee Iran because, according to the strict morality laws of the country, her actions constituted a crime.

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Furthermore, given Iran does not readily accept people who are forcibly deported from outside countries, the future for Mojgan looks bleak. Any return to Iran would result in imprisonment at the least, punitive corporal punishment at worst.

In reaching its decision, the office of Immigration Minister Peter Dutton appears to be leaning on the (seemingly broad) definition of persecution as outlined in the Geneva Convention. According to the Convention, the term "refugee" can be applied to anyone who, "(o)wing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of (their) nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail (themselves) of the protection of that country."

Given Mojgan opted to enter detention rather than return to Iran, it is apparent she is genuinely and legitimately fearful of being persecuted there. Unfortunately for Mojgan, she is a member of that particular group who, despite their global oppression, is not recognised by the Convention as a "persecuted" group.

I am talking, of course, about that group we call women.

When we talk about the oppression and subjugation of women, we do so in terms of "discrimination," "subjugation," and "marginalisation." Rarely, if ever, do we apply the term "persecution." It seems very few of us question why that is.

It is true that much of the oppression meted out to women is not at the hands of the state, but by private citizens, and even more narrowly - as in Mojgan's case - their own families. Nonetheless, this can and should be considered a form of persecution.

Political science professor and refugee advocate Joseph Carens reminds us that when we are talking about safety and right to life, "what should matter the most is the seriousness of the danger and the extent of the risk, not the source of the threat or the motivation behind it."

Women across the globe are at serious risk for no reason other than the fact they are women. From the child-brides of Guatemala and Yemen, to the women and girls at risk of FGM in Africa, to the "honour crime" victims of India and Pakistan, to those at risk of domestic violence in Every Single Country where men and women are found, women across the globe face dire violence inflicted against their bodies because they are women.

That this violence is often culturally-sanctioned, or at the least culturally tolerated, does not make this risk any less real or any more acceptable.

In any case, even when culturally-imposed, in many cases patriarchal violence is not only permitted by the state (cough, Russia, cough), but it is often precipitated by it. In Mojgan's country of Iran, for instance, morality laws targeting women's dress, behaviour, and sexual practices that were introduced after the 1979 "Islamic" Revolution are both directly and indirectly responsible for much of that country's persecution of women.

This is something both the Convention and our immigration department must consider when considering women's claims to asylum.

Elsewhere, women are persecuted by their state for "morality crimes" that were first culturally and/or religiously imposed and then adopted as law. In El-Salvador, for instance, Catholic resistance to women's reproductive rights and abortion is directly responsible for laws that imprison women for up to 40 years for having a miscarriage.

This co-operation between organised religion, long-standing cultural expectations regarding women – ironically, many of which are themselves rooted in colonial-era laws created and enforced by Europeans – and the state show just how dire the situation is and how imperative it is that women are recognised as one of the world's most – if not the most – persecuted groups.

Unless Peter Dutton has another change of heart, Mojgan will be sent back to Iran to what could be a violent and terrifying fate. Given her stepfather's ties to the government, she claims she will be "tortured and then killed."

The life of a young woman should not hang on the whims of a man who will never know what it really means to be persecuted.

If women's rights are indeed human rights, then we must recognise that women are a persecuted group who meet the requirements of refugees and should be treated as such.

Let Mojgan stay. Let all women at risk of patriarchal violence, whether at the hands of the law or their community, stay. Women have been persecuted for far too long and far too often.

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