ethnic discrimination

The appellant, a Somali girl, applied to the Austrian government for asylum and international protection due to her precarious situation in Yemen. The appellant’s family fled to Yemen when she was four years old because her family was discriminated against in Somalia due to their affiliation with a Madhibaan minority clan. The plaintiff’s brother and father were killed and no other family remained in Somalia. Further, female genital mutilation is a common practice in Somalia.

The applicant was sterilized at age 17 during the birth of her second child. She claimed that she was coerced into signing the authorizations for the sterilization, segregated in the hospital based on her Roma ethnicity, and that the decision to sterilize her was discriminatory. The District Court dismissed the applicant’s civil action against the hospital on the basis that the sterilization was required to save her life and, therefore, did not need consent.

Women of Badi origin, an ethnic minority subjected to social and economic exclusion in Nepal, are often forced into prostitution and become single mothers. The petition sought to rectify the common practice of denying citizenship and other rights to Badi children when the father cannot be found. The Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny citizenship on such claims and, furthermore, amended a law that gave men precedence over women in birth and death registrations.

Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009), as amended.