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the definition of asylum has been expanded unreasonably,

potentially opening the asylum floodgates to large classes

of undeserving applicants.  Those arguments are particularly

directed at decisions concerning gender-based and sexual

orientation claims.52

For example, gender-based claims such as that of Fau-

ziya Kasinga have been criticized because of their potential

impact on and significance to all African women.  Fauziya

fled her home country of Togo after being forced to become

the fourth wife of a much older man, and a few days before

she was to be forced to have her genitals mutilated in

accordance with a tribal custom.53  Fearing female genital

mutilation, which she knew had killed or severely injured

many African women, she fled to the United States.  She

later said that she did not even know about asylum protec-

tion until after she fled Togo.54  She was ultimately grant-

ed asylum.55

Criticism of asylum claims based on female genital

mutilation is due to the fear that the law will lure more

gender-based claims than the country could support.  Yet the

argument is not supported by fact.  Canada promulgated

guidelines concerning gender-based asylum claims in 1993.

From 1993 and 1995, only approximately 1 percent of all

grants of asylum in Canada were based on gender.56  Why so

few?  Gender-based persecution prevails in paternalistic

societies where women have limited freedoms and rights.

Women's traditional roles in those societies leave them with

limited power or resources to escape their situations.

Notwithstanding the level of their persecution, few can make

it to the United States or to Canada.

Similar criticism has also been directed at decisions

granting asylum on the basis of sexual orientation.  The

argument is made that the grant of such claims will spur

additional claims and that the decisions go beyond the

original intent of asylum.57  Again the assertions are not

supported by fact.

Obviously, if all that was necessary to gain asylum in

the United States was a simple assertion that a person was

gay, there would already have been perhaps millions of

claims annually.  In fact, fewer than 50 individuals have

been granted asylum in the United States on the basis of

sexual orientation.58  All of those cases involved people

who were persecuted by a government entity because of their