Asylum Granted to Chinese Girl Sold into Marriage
Posted Dec 28, 2000

Over the course of the past few years, INS and Immigration Courts have become more sensitive to types of persecution and harm that are particular to women. INS issued detailed guidelines for gender-based asylum claims in 1995, and just this year (in 2000) also published regulations to clarify further the standards for deciding these claims. We describe below a case that may be of interest to our readers. This case, decided in the Chicago, IL Immigration Court, was not handled by our office, but was publicly reported in the legal literature. The story of this teenaged girl speaks powerfully about social attitudes towards women that are all too common in so many countries around the world.

The 16-year-old applicant, a Chinese national, grew up being told that because she was a girl, she was lucky to be alive. In fact her sister, born the previous year, was drowned while still a baby. Another sister was sold into marriage in 1997. The applicant never went to school because her parents intended to sell her too, in order to buy a house for her brother. This practice is reportedly common on the island where she lived. In 1998, the applicant was sold for marriage and her parents ordered her to marry the man she was sold to.

The most straightforward type of asylum case involves persecution by the government. If the persecutors are non-government individuals, it is necessary to claim that the authorities are unable or unwilling to provide protection, or that it would be futile to ask for such protection. The applicant therefore showed, through the testimony of an expert witness, that even though both forced and arranged marriages were officially abolished in China in 1951, the law is not generally enforced. Furthermore, the man she was supposed to marry was a prominent and influential figure in the community so it was not likely the authorities would protect the applicant. Relocating within China was not possible, because people must register with the local authorities. If the applicant were to register, she could be easily found. A psychiatrist also evaluated her and testified that she was suffering from depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The Immigration Judge found the evidence to be persuasive and granted her request for asylum in the U.S.