Dr. Christel Querton, a researcher in international refugee law, examines in an article published in the European Journal of International Law how forced marriage to members of armed groups should be assessed when determining women’s refugee status. Her central argument is that recognizing this phenomenon as a form of forced recruitment can reveal the connection between persecution and “imputed political opinion” and help address gaps in the protection of women under refugee law. The presumption that states cannot provide protection in territory controlled by groups imposing forced marriage, and that victims should not be excluded from refugee protection, are two other important elements of her argument.
The article, titled “Reconceiving Forced Marriage into Armed Groups as Forced Recruitment in International Refugee Law,” was published on May 24, 2026. The publication date is taken from the journal’s official page. Oxford University Press publishes the journal on behalf of EJIL Ltd. The article is open access, and in an endnote the author thanks five anonymous reviewers. Earlier versions of the research were also presented at academic and specialist refugee-law events.
Querton’s institutional affiliation in the article is listed as Senior Lecturer in Law at Bristol Law School, University of the West of England. The university’s official profile identifies her current position as Associate Professor of International Refugee Law. According to the same university source, her research focuses on refugee women, people fleeing armed conflict, and comparative analysis of refugee decisions. She has also previously practiced in the fields of asylum, migration, and human rights. According to the university profile, her book Conflict Refugees: Law and Practice in the European Union was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.
Drawing on legal, political, and social research, Querton explains that forced marriage within armed groups cannot be understood solely as a matter of private relationships or family traditions. Such practices may serve to recruit and retain personnel, provide unpaid labor, reinforce hierarchies, and control civilian populations. The imposition of a marital relationship may therefore form part of a group’s strategy for sustaining its military activities and advancing its political and social project.
To explain these functions, the article refers to examples from Uganda and Sierra Leone. In Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army, forced marriage was used to reward fighters and demonstrate their status. In Sierra Leone’s Revolutionary United Front, the practice was linked to maintaining organizational control and hierarchy. The Special Court for Sierra Leone described the group’s use of forced marriage as both a tactic of warfare and a means of obtaining unpaid logistical support.
In this analysis, forced recruitment is not limited to compelling people to carry weapons and participate directly in combat. Women and girls may be recruited to perform domestic work, provide support services, and endure imposed marital relationships within the group’s structure. Querton argues that focusing on direct combat roles overlooks these forms of exploitation and their contribution to maintaining a group’s operational capacity. For this reason, forced marriage to members of armed groups can be analyzed under refugee law as a form of forced recruitment.
The article also addresses the overlap between forced marriage and child recruitment. Among other sources, it cites research concerning Liberian girls who joined groups seeking protection and were subsequently forced to marry their leaders or members. However, the author makes clear that she does not comprehensively examine the specific issues arising in girls’ asylum claims and considers this an area requiring separate research.
On the issue of consent, Querton draws on United Nations definitions and the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The UN definition encompasses marriage without the full and free consent of one or both parties, as well as situations in which a person is unable to end the marriage or leave it because of coercion or severe pressure. In the Ongwen case, the ICC Appeals Chamber also described the imposition of a marital union through physical or psychological force, threats of force, or exploitation of a coercive environment. The identification of coercion, therefore, is not limited to the existence of direct physical violence.
The author also notes that marital relationships imposed during armed conflicts are often neither formally nor customarily registered or recognized. Nevertheless, terms such as “wife” may be used to describe these relationships. This is important in understanding the nature of the phenomenon because the issue under examination is not simply the legal validity of a marriage, but the imposition of a relationship and the obligations and harms arising from it.
In reviewing the research literature, Querton cites a critique according to which some decision-makers break forced marriage down into harms such as rape and domestic violence, thereby moving the imposition of the marital relationship itself out of the focus of the assessment. However, in the fifth section of the article, the author moves away from an approach centered exclusively on forced marriage as the primary source of harm and proposes that, when establishing a connection between persecution and the grounds set out in the Refugee Convention, decision-makers should examine all dimensions of the harm, particularly the consequences of refusing or escaping the marriage.
Another argument is that the broad category of “forced marriage” alone does not capture the complexity of the phenomenon within armed groups, including forced labor and its strategic function in supporting group activities. Forced marriage should also not be treated simply as synonymous with sexual violence. The article identifies forced labor, imposed domestic duties, forced childbearing and childcare, restrictions on access to education and healthcare, restrictions on movement, and deprivation of liberty as related forms of harm.
Querton reviews the jurisprudence of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court and explains that forced marriage has been examined as an “other inhumane act,” distinct from sexual slavery. This distinction recognizes the harm arising from the imposition of a marital relationship. However, establishing a crime against humanity requires proof of the relevant legal elements, including that the conduct occurred as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population and that the perpetrator had knowledge of the attack.
The article’s central argument under refugee law concerns the consequences of opposition and escape. An armed group may view refusal to marry or escape from a forced marriage as opposition to its objectives and rejection of a new social order or governance structure it has imposed. In such circumstances, even if a woman has not engaged in political activity, the group may attribute a political opinion to her and persecute or threaten her on that basis. The author identifies this mechanism as a basis for analyzing the relationship between persecution and imputed political opinion.
This approach challenges a practice in which claims by women who have escaped forced marriage are examined primarily under the ground of membership of a particular social group. According to the author, restrictive interpretations and disagreement over how such groups should be defined can obstruct protection. Focusing instead on the objectives and strategies of the armed group can make it possible to identify a connection between persecution and imputed political opinion.
On state protection, the article takes a clear position: when an armed group imposes forced marriage in territory under its control, the state’s inability to protect women should be presumed. The author also emphasizes that a woman need not previously have been personally targeted for forced marriage or have experienced an attempt to impose it. It is sufficient for the evidence to demonstrate, in light of her individual circumstances, that groups use the practice as a conflict strategy and that she faces a real risk.
The analysis of imputed political opinion does not replace all other grounds under the Refugee Convention. The article notes that when women are targeted because of their ethnicity or religion—as in the targeting of Yazidi women by ISIS—reliance on the ethnic or religious ground may be clearer and more persuasive. The author’s proposed approach is particularly significant where no such connection to religion or ethnicity exists.
Another section of the article addresses Article 1F of the Refugee Convention and exclusion from protection. The question is whether treating forced marriage as forced recruitment could result in women being excluded from protection because of their association with an armed group. While explaining the need for an individualized assessment of responsibility, Querton argues that the women examined in the study did not voluntarily join the group, had no influence over how the conflict was conducted or international crimes were committed, and generally performed roles limited to coerced logistical support.
According to her analysis, these women’s roles as “wives” make little, if any, significant contribution to the commission of crimes. The author therefore concludes that they should not be treated as perpetrators and that recognizing forced marriage as forced recruitment should not result in the application of refugee-exclusion provisions against them. She considers excluding people who are themselves victims of crimes against humanity, in the circumstances under discussion, inconsistent with the object and purpose of Article 1F. This section concerns exclusion from refugee protection, not a determination of criminal guilt or a criminal trial.
In conclusion, Querton calls for revisions to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) guidelines, particularly those concerning armed conflict and military service. In her view, the guidelines should better reflect the nature of the harm, the coercive environment, the objectives pursued by groups through forced marriage, and the connection between persecution and imputed political opinion. Lawyers and legal representatives should also present relevant country-of-origin evidence to clarify these dimensions.
In an analytical application of this research to issues addressed by Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Watch (IKHRW), the account of “Hira” concerning forced marriages in the Pak group, as well as cases involving the recruitment of adolescents, restrictions on leaving, and threats against defectors, raises related questions: Did an imposed relationship or service play a role in providing personnel or support to the group? Was opposition or escape regarded by the group as opposition to its objectives or rejection of an imposed social order and governance structure? And how do coercion, an individual’s actual role, and the extent of their knowledge affect assessments of responsibility and protection needs? These questions represent a possible application of the article’s framework to IKHRW cases, not findings by the author concerning those cases. The article does not conduct a case study of Kurdish armed groups; the Kurdish woman discussed in it is also presented in connection with a forced family marriage and does not constitute evidence concerning the conduct of armed groups. Applying Querton’s analysis in legal follow-up to IKHRW cases requires independent documentation for each case and, in refugee matters, an assessment of the applicable requirements concerning risk, country of origin, and the availability of protection.
