Speaking the Unspeakable: Disclosures of Sexual and Gender-based Violence in Asylum Credibility Assessments

Abstract

This article explores the extent to which the human rights framework relating to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is upheld in the Norwegian asylum system, by investigating if and how asylum bureaucrats enable the disclosure of SGBV and how such disclosure may impact the assessment of applicants’ credibility. Credibility assessment is important in deciding who is eligible for protection. Eliciting disclosures of SGBV in general is notoriously difficult, and SGBV allegations are often disbelieved. It is also well known that credibility assessment in the asylum system involves working with ambiguity and challenges, but this has rarely been explored with a particular focus on SGBV. Through an analysis of public case summaries and 18 semi-structured interviews with asylum caseworkers and key actors, drawing on Lipsky’s theory of street-level bureaucrats, we conclude that caseworkers’ use of coping mechanisms makes them reluctant to enable, or engage with, disclosures of SGBV, and that this may endanger human rights.