CEDAW/C/59/D/59/2013 women includes gender-based violence, including acts that inflict physical, mental or sexual harm or suffering. Accordingly, her deportation to China would amount to a breach by Denmark of the Convention and the general recommendation. She explains that she would not receive protection from the Chinese authorities because she was not married to the child’s father and because she comes from a society in which it is considered normal for men to beat women. She adds that she is afraid that her religion would place her in an even weaker situation if she were to seek help or protection from the authorities in relation to her child. 3.4 The author claims that the foregoing demonstrates that she would be a victim of a violation of articles 1 to 3 and 5 of the Convention and of the Committee’s general recommendation No. 19. She claims that, by deporting her to China, Denmark would be in breach of the Convention because the Chinese authorities would be unable to protect her. State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 By a note verbale of 14 October 2013, the State party challenged the admissibility of the communication. It recalls the facts of the case, noting that the author is a Chinese national born in 1974 who entered Denmark without valid travel documents early in 2011. On 16 June 2011, the police encountered her in a Chinese restaurant and arrested her for being in the country illegally. At the statutory court hearing on 18 June 2011, the author applied for asylum, claiming that she had nowhere to live in China and that she would face violence at the hands of her former partner, with whom she had a son, if they met again. She stated that she had given birth at 25 years of age, in or around 1999. Shortly after, the father had left with the child; he had hit her six times on that occasion. The child had lived with his father since then and the author had not seen him since 1998. After their break -up, the author had telephoned her former partner once because she wanted custody of their child; he had visited her and they had fought. She had met him again two or three years before her departure and he had threatened to hit her if she continued to harass him. The author had not since sought to contact him and he had not looked for her. The author also referred to her lack of freedom of religion in China. 4.2 On 23 August 2011, the Danish Immigration Service refused to grant her asylum. On 7 November 2011, the Refugee Appeals Board upheld that decision, finding that the author did not meet the conditions for residence under section 7 of the Aliens Act. The Board considered it a fact that the author had had conflict with the child’s father, who had hit her, but noted that she had not contacted the authorities about that violence or about her former partner taking the child away. It observed that the author’s relationship with her former partner was a matter of private law and that that conflict did not imply that, if returned to China, the author would necessarily risk persecution or outrages of a nature set out in section 7 (2) of the Aliens Act against which she would be unable to seek the protection of the Chinese authorities. The Board also observed that the author’s former partner had not himself sought her out. 4.3 Concerning the exercise of her religion, the Board gave credence to the author’s statement that she had taken part and assisted a priest in Catholic services every day in the city in which she worked. The priest had told her to be careful wi th the authorities; the author had had no conflict or dealings with the authorities 4/10 14-67404