CEDAW/C/50/D/26/2010 would be exposed in case of return would cause them serious prejudice, in addition to their uprooting from Canada, where they are secure, to a hypothetical insecure shelter in Mexico, assuming the family is admitted to one. The children would probably need to relocate with their mother to another city in Mexico, away from friends and relatives. The dismissal by the State party’s authorities of the author’s last application for judicial review on 1 June 2010 had a negative impact on her children. She contends that the State party failed to consider the best interest of her children.6 Complaint 3.1 The author claims that by deporting her to Mexico, the State party would allow Mexico to violate her rights under article 1, article 2 (a)-(d), article 5 (a), and article 24 of the Convention. State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 By its submission of 6 December 2010, the State party challenges the admissibility of the communication, arguing that the author’s communication seeks to apply the obligations under the Convention in an extraterritorial manner. According to the State party, the author’s allegations of violation relate to Mexico and not to Canada. As a consequence, the Committee lacks jurisdiction over the claimed violations in respect of Canada and the communication is incompatible with the provisions of the Convention. 4.2 The State party further submits that the author bases her communication on the same story, evidence and facts that were previously presented to the Canadian officials, and that were determined by risk assessment experts and an independent court, in each case, not to support a finding of a substantial personal risk to the author if returned to Mexico, and also taking into account the best interests of the author’s children. The State party stresses that in Canada, persecution based on gender, including domestic violence, can sustain a claim to refugee status, and that PRRA Officers are specifically trained on how to identify and assess the risks specific to victims of domestic violence as a protected social group, relying on gender guidelines which have been developed by the Immigration and Refugee Board for assessing gender-based claims of persecution, including for the assessment of “internal flight alternative”,7 as in the author’s case. 4.3 The author’s PRRA application on behalf of herself and her two children, and which was based on the risk of domestic violence that the author would face if returned to Mexico, was turned down on 30 April 2009, as the author failed to establish, on a balance of probabilities, that she and her children faced a risk of persecution, torture, threats to their lives or cruel and unusual treatment if returned to Mexico. In arriving at this conclusion, the PRRA Officer considered the possible protection offered in Mexico and found that the author had failed to provide clear and convincing evidence that the available protection was not adequate. In assessing the lack of a risk of torture, persecution or threats to the lives of the author and her children if returned, the Officer also highlighted the strong family network available to the __________________ 6 7 She refers to article 24 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as to Human Rights Committee communication No. 1069/2002, Bakhtiyari v. Australia, Views adopted on 29 October 2003. The various instances which examined the author’s applications highlighted her strong family network available in Mexico, and her possibility to establish herself in another part of the country, or even another part of the Mexico City area, where she had not previously lived, so as to avoid the threat of her husband. 5