​The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) is pleased to announce the establishment of the Gender Related Task Force (GRTF) at the Refugee Protection Division (RPD). In keeping with the IRB’s proud history of being a global leader in developing guidelines on how best to conduct hearings for refugee claimants raising gender-related issues, the GRTF, a Chairperson’s initiative, is an additional measure introduced to further enhance the quality of decision-making at the RPD.

Refugee claims will be assigned to the GRTF based on refugee claim-type only; streaming will not consider the degree of complexity of a claim or average acceptance rates and will not result in priority or expedited processing. As is always the case, claims assigned to the GRTF will be determined based on the evidence, the specific merits of the claim, and in accordance with the law.

The training for GRTF members will be spread out over four weeks and will be delivered by leading experts on refugee and immigration law on topics such as trauma-informed practice, trauma-informed decision making, questioning from a cross-cultural and trauma-informed perspective, cultural humility, assessing credibility and weighing of evidence.  Once fully trained, GRTF members will start hearing refugee claims in late October 2020.

The work of the GRTF, together with that of members across the RPD, is expected to contribute to the advancement of the RPD’s overall adjudicative strategy of fair and efficient decision-making and the IRB’s standing as a leading-edge administrative tribunal that recognizes the unique issues involved in adjudicating gender-related refugee claims.

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