To be granted refugee status in the UK you need to prove that you have a well-founded fear that, if you were returned to your country of origin, you would be persecuted for one of the reasons covered by the Refugee Convention, and that the government/authorities in your country could not protect you from this persecution.
To prove this you may need to provide evidence about the situation in your country of origin – in general, or for a particular group of people in your country – in addition to the information you give in your asylum interview and any documents or evidence that are directly about you.
You may need to provide this evidence at different points of your asylum (or human rights) claim – for example, when you claim asylum, or if you are appealing a refusal by the Home Office, or if you are making further submissions to be considered as a fresh claim.
More about finding country evidence
Good places to find this evidence can be reports by international human rights organisations or trusted media sources.
It is common for information relevant to your case to be found in ‘interest-group’ media sources, such as an LGBT online newspaper like Pink News, or a Zimbabwean opposition newspaper. These sources are often not considered as independent and reliable by the courts. You should try and find the same information in more mainstream media, for example newspapers with good world/foreign reporting such as The Guardian, Independent, or New York Times (or even better in a human rights report).
Key sources of information
More sources of information
Human rights information – general
International Federation for Human Rights
Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa
UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights
US Department of State: Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
World Organisation Against Torture
Armed forces
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Children
Child Rights Information Network
Child labour
International Labour Organisation
US Department of Labor on Child Labor
Child Solidiers
UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
Watch List on Children and Armed Conflict
Constitutions and national legislation
International Labour Organisation
Richmond University (Virginia, USA)
Death Penalty
Amnesty International, Abolish the death penalty
Ethnic groups and minorities
Minority Rights Group International
Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex persons
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans And Intersex Association (ILGA)
Organization for Refuge, Asylum and Migration
The Social Institutions and Gender Index
Refugee Legal Aid Information – LGBTI situation by country
Internally Displaced People (IDPs)/humanitarian issues
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Journalists and media
Committee to Protect Journalists
International Federation Of Journalists
International Freedom Of Expression Exchange
Medical care
Africa Health Workforce Observatory
Religious Freedom
>Women
Center for Reproductive Rights
International Center for Research on Women
The Social Institutions and Gender Index
UN Women – United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
UN Commission on the Status of Women
World Health Organisation: Women’s health
Female Genital Mutilation
Centre for Reproductive rights: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): Legal Prohibitions Worldwide
