CEDAW/C/73/D/86/2015 and on the basis of lack of substantiation. 16 Apart from the author’s contentions, the Refugee Appeals Board also found the arrest warrant against the author, on which grounds she requested the reopening of her case, to be fabricated for the occasion, given the circumstances of how the author came into possession of the doc ument. The Committee notes in that respect that, on the basis of the assessment of the author ’s credibility, the Board did not find it necessary to request verification of the authenticity of the document. 8.4 In that connection, the Committee recalls that it is generally for the authorities of States parties to the Convention to evaluate the facts and evidence and the application of national law in a particular case, 17 unless it can be established that the evaluation was biased or based on gender stereotyp es that constitute discrimination against women, was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice. The issue before the Committee is therefore whether there was any irregularity and arbitrariness in the decision-making process regarding the author’s asylum application to the extent that the State party authorities failed to properly assess the risk of serious gender based violence in the event of the return of the author and her daughters to Jordan. The Committee reiterates that, in carrying out their assessment, States parties should give sufficient weight to the real and personal risk that a person might face if deported. 8.5 In the present case, the Committee considers that it was incumbent upon the State party to undertake an individualized assessment of the real, personal and foreseeable risk that the author would face, as a woman who has knowingly abandoned her violent husband and fled Jordan with their two minor daughters who were at risk of forced marriage there, rather than relying exclusivel y on a number of inconsistent statements and the inferred non-credibility of the author. In that connection, the Committee recalls its concluding observations on the sixth periodic report of Jordan (CEDAW/C/JOR/CO/6), issued in 2017, in which it expressed concern about the persistence of deep-rooted discriminatory stereotypes concerning the roles and responsibilities of women and men in the family and in society, which overemphasized the traditional role of women as mothers and wives, thereby undermining women’s social status, autonomy, educational opportunities and professional careers. In the concluding observations, it also noted with concern that patriarchal attitudes were on the rise within State authorities and society and that gender equality was being openly and increasingly challenged by conservative groups. Those observations are particularly relevant not only to the assessment of the risks that the author herself would allegedly face upon her r eturn to Jordan, but also in relation to the assessment of risks that her daughters would face, namely, forced marriage. In that respect, the Committee notes that the latter claim, in relation to the author’s daughters, does not seem to have been given any specific consideration by the Refugee Appeals Board or other authority. __________________ 16 17 19-15427 In considering the author’s statement that she was being kept under permanent surveillance in Jordan, the asylum authorities found it to be unlikely that, had that been the case, the author ’s spouse would have allowed her to travel unaccompanied to another country with their daughters, especially given that one of them was about to be married. Taking into account that the author, according to her own statement, had lived together with her husband ’s family in Jordan, the asylum authorities also found it implausible that she had only managed to gain the consent of her husband by telling him that their children were too young to take care of themselves and that no one else could look after them. Furthermore, the State party found the author ’s statements regarding her husband’s illegal activities and her alleged involvement in such activities, as well as the killing of her cousin, to be non-credible. The author’s explanation for not bringing that important information to the knowledge of the asylum authorities in her initial complaint or during the subsequent interviews was also deemed to be non-credible. See, for example, R.P.B. v. Philippines (CEDAW/C/57/D/34/2011), para. 7.5. 11/13