Non-State Persecution: When Your Persecutor Isn't the Government

Last updated: 15 October 2026

Photo: Santuário de Fátima - Terry Kearney

Many people think only governments can be persecutors. This is wrong. In asylum law, your persecutor does not have to be the state. Non-state persecution is widely recognized. A family that wants to kill you for "honour", a gang that hunts you for refusing to pay, an armed group that targets your village, or a mob that attacks LGBTQ+ people — all of these can be persecutors under the 1951 Refugee Convention. The key question is not who hurts you. The key question is whether your state can or will protect you.

This article explains the main types of non-state persecutors, how courts treat these claims, and what you must show to win asylum. It draws on UNHCR Guidelines, the leading UK case Horvath v SSHD [2001] UKHL 39, the EU Qualification Directive, and country reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United States State Department. For asylum decision-makers and expert witnesses, understanding non-state persecution is essential — most modern asylum claims involve non-state actors.

What Is Non-State Persecution?

Non-state persecution means harm caused by people or groups who are not part of the government. The persecutor can be a private person, a family member, a criminal gang, an armed group, or a mob. The 1951 Refugee Convention does not say the persecutor must be the state. It only says the person must have a "well-founded fear of being persecuted" for one of five reasons: race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership of a particular social group.[1]

UNHCR's Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status, paragraph 65, makes this clear. It states that persecution can come from "sections of the population that do not respect the standards established by the laws of the country". When the authorities cannot or will not give protection, the person can qualify as a refugee. The European Union codified this view in Article 6 of the Qualification Directive 2011/95/EU. The United Kingdom did the same through Horvath v SSHD [2001] UKHL 39. The United States has long accepted the principle through Matter of Acosta 19 I&N Dec. 211 (BIA 1985).[2]

Main Types of Non-State Persecutors

Non-state persecutors come in many forms. Each type has different methods, different motives, and different country contexts. Understanding the type helps frame the asylum claim correctly. Below are the four most common categories courts see in practice.

Family and Clan: Honour Violence and Blood Feuds

The first type is family or clan persecution. In many countries, the family controls a person's life much more than the state. Women who refuse forced marriage, leave abusive husbands, or have relationships outside marriage face severe punishment. Men who break "honour" rules or join the wrong side in a feud also face death threats. The persecutors are fathers, brothers, uncles, husbands, or whole clans.[3]

Honour killings happen across many regions. Pakistan reports between 470 and 1,000 honour killings per year, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. In Iraqi Kurdistan, women's organisations record dozens of honour-based killings annually. In Afghanistan under the Taliban, women who flee abuse face return to their families with little legal protection. Jordan, Turkey, and Yemen record similar patterns.[4]

Blood feuds (vendettas) are another form. In northern Albania, the customary code Kanun still operates in some regions. A killing in one family creates a duty of revenge in the victim's family. Whole male lines can become targets. Children are sometimes confined to their homes for years. Similar patterns exist in parts of Chechnya, Dagestan, and tribal regions of Pakistan.[5]

Armed Groups: Taliban, Al-Shabaab, FARC Successors, Boko Haram

The second type is armed non-state groups. These groups often control territory or operate with effective impunity. They target people based on ethnicity, religion, perceived political opinion, or simple refusal to join. The Taliban in Afghanistan, Al-Shabaab in Somalia and Kenya, ISIS-K, Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region, and FARC successor groups in Colombia are all classic examples.[6]

The Taliban, since regaining power in August 2021, target former government workers, judges, women's rights activists, journalists, members of the Shia Hazara minority, and people who worked with NATO forces. Al-Shabaab in Somalia targets clan minorities, women who refuse forced marriage to fighters, and anyone seen as cooperating with the federal government. Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) attack Christians, "Western-educated" people, and women in north-east Nigeria.[7]

FARC dissident groups, the ELN, and the Clan del Golfo continue to operate in rural Colombia despite the 2016 peace agreement. They target social leaders, indigenous activists, former combatants who demobilised, and people who refuse to pay extortion. According to INDEPAZ, more than 1,400 social leaders have been killed in Colombia since 2016, mostly by these groups.[8]

Criminal Gangs and Organised Crime

The third type is criminal gangs. These groups do not have a clear political programme but they exercise control over territory, people, and resources. In Central America, the maras (MS-13 and Barrio 18) operate across El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. In Mexico, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), Los Zetas successors, and the Gulf Cartel control large regions. In Italy, the Mafia (Cosa Nostra), 'Ndrangheta, and Camorra continue to threaten witnesses and journalists. Albanian organised crime networks operate across Europe.[9]

Maras target young men who refuse to join, business owners who refuse to pay renta (extortion), women who refuse to be "girlfriends" of gang members, and family members of gang victims. In El Salvador in 2015, at the peak of mara violence, the homicide rate reached 103 per 100,000 — one of the highest in the world. Even after the 2022 mass arrests under President Bukele, many people remain at risk from gang retaliation if they return.[10]

Mexican cartels target journalists, human rights defenders, indigenous leaders who oppose mining or logging, and migrants in transit. Mexico recorded over 30,000 homicides per year between 2018 and 2024. Cartels routinely buy protection from local police and judges, making state protection an illusion in many regions.[11]

In the United States, gang-based claims have been especially contested. The Attorney General's decision in Matter of A-B-, 27 I&N Dec 316 (A.G. 2018), made it harder to win particular social group claims based on gang or domestic violence. However, Matter of A-B-, 28 I&N Dec 307 (A.G. 2021), vacated that decision in June 2021, and it is no longer good law. Gang-based claims still need a carefully defined particular social group or political opinion ground.

Community and Society: Mobs and Social Persecution

The fourth type is community persecution. Here the persecutor is not one organised group but a part of society. LGBTQ+ people in homophobic countries face attacks from neighbours, co-workers, and strangers. Religious minorities — Christians in Pakistan, Ahmadis, Bahá'ís in Iran, Yazidis in northern Iraq — face mob violence. Witches (often elderly women) are still attacked in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.[12]

In Uganda, the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act not only criminalises same-sex relations but creates an environment where mob attacks on LGBTQ+ people are common. In Russia, after the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that designated the "international LGBT movement" as extremist, harassment by private individuals against LGBTQ+ people increased sharply. In Pakistan, blasphemy accusations regularly trigger mob violence against Christians and Ahmadis.[13]

Non-State Persecutors: Types, Examples, and Countries

The table below summarises the main categories of non-state persecutors with country examples and typical victim groups. This kind of mapping is useful for asylum lawyers and decision-makers because it shows how to frame a claim and what country evidence to gather.

How Non-State Persecution Becomes Refugee-Relevant

Not every private dispute makes someone a refugee. Asylum law looks at two questions together. First, does the harm count as persecution? Second, can the state protect the person? Both must be answered before a claim succeeds. The leading test in the United Kingdom comes from Horvath v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2001] UKHL 39.[14]

The Horvath Test: Sufficiency of Protection

In Horvath, the House of Lords looked at a Roma claimant from Slovakia who feared skinhead attacks. The Lords ruled that the test is whether the home state provides "a sufficiency of protection". This means a working police force, a working justice system, and a willingness to enforce the law. It does not mean perfect protection — no state can guarantee that. But it does mean the person must have access to a system that, in practice, will investigate, prosecute, and punish the attackers.[15]

The Horvath test has three parts. (1) Is there a system of criminal law that makes attacks of the kind feared a crime? (2) Are the police and courts willing and able to enforce that law? (3) Does the claimant have reasonable access to that system? If the answer to any of these is "no", state protection is not sufficient and the non-state persecution becomes refugee-relevant. For more on the practical side, see our asylum guide.[16]

EU Qualification Directive: Article 6 and Article 7

The EU Qualification Directive 2011/95/EU is even more direct. Article 6 lists the actors of persecution: "(a) the State; (b) parties or organisations controlling the State or a substantial part of the territory; (c) non-State actors, if it can be demonstrated that the actors mentioned in points (a) and (b)... are unable or unwilling to provide protection". Article 7 then sets the standard for protection: it must be "effective" and "non-temporary", and there must be an "effective legal system" against persecution.[17]

United States and Canada

Courts in the United States and Canada apply the same principle. In Matter of S-A-, 22 I&N Dec 1328 (BIA 2000), the Board of Immigration Appeals granted asylum to a Moroccan woman abused by her father, because the Moroccan government was unable or unwilling to protect her. The refugee definition in INA section 101(a)(42) does not require the persecutor to be the state. In Canada, the Supreme Court held in Canada (Attorney General) v Ward [1993] 2 SCR 689 that state complicity is not required: persecution by a non-state group counts when the state cannot protect the claimant. Ward also sets a presumption that a state can protect its citizens, which the claimant must rebut with clear and convincing evidence.

Top Countries with Non-State Persecution Claims

Asylum statistics show clearly that non-state persecution dominates many of the largest refugee-producing countries. The chart below shows the share of asylum applications in the EU and UK in 2023-2024 in which non-state actors were the main persecutor cited by claimants. The data is drawn from EUAA (European Union Agency for Asylum) country guidance and UNHCR operational reports.

State Complicity vs State Failure: A Hard Line to Draw

One of the most difficult questions in non-state persecution claims is whether the state is simply unable to protect, or whether it actually supports the persecutors. The line is often blurred. In some countries, the police take bribes from cartels but do not formally cooperate. In others, individual judges work with the mafia but the system as a whole tries to prosecute organised crime. In yet other places, security forces actively assist private actors against minorities.

For example, in Russia under the 2023 LGBT extremism ruling, anti-LGBTQ+ mob attacks happen partly because police actively encourage them. In Chechnya, federal authorities allow Ramzan Kadyrov's forces to operate against gay men with impunity — this is closer to state persecution dressed in non-state clothing. In Honduras, by contrast, gangs operate against the wishes of the central state, but local police are penetrated by them. Both situations can ground a refugee claim, but the legal analysis differs.[18]

UNHCR Guidelines on International Protection No. 1 (gender-related persecution) and No. 2 (membership of a particular social group) emphasise that the practical effect for the victim is what matters. Whether the state is unwilling, unable, or complicit, if protection is not available in fact, the person is at risk. Country reports on human rights are a vital tool to show this.[19]

What UNHCR Says About Non-State Agents

Persecution may emanate from sections of the population that do not respect the standards established by the laws of the country. Where serious discriminatory or other offensive acts are committed by the local populace, they can be considered as persecution if they are knowingly tolerated by the authorities, or if the authorities refuse, or prove unable, to offer effective protection.
UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status, paragraph 65

This single paragraph, written in 1979 and reissued multiple times, is the foundation of all modern non-state persecution case law. Courts in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands have cited it. The key phrases — "knowingly tolerated", "refuse, or prove unable" — capture the entire spectrum from active complicity to passive failure.[20]

What This Means for Asylum Claims

For an asylum claim based on non-state persecution to succeed, the applicant must usually prove four things. First, that the persecutor is real and that the threats are credible. Second, that the harm feared is serious enough to count as persecution (not just discrimination or hardship). Third, that the persecution links to a Convention reason — race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or particular social group. Fourth, that the state cannot or will not provide effective protection.[21]

Expert evidence is often decisive. A country expert can show that, in El Salvador, gang members who learn that someone went to the police take revenge within days. A Pakistan expert can show that women who report honour threats to police are usually returned to their families. An Albania expert can show that blood feud reconciliation is governed by customary structures the state cannot reach. Without such evidence, decision-makers may rely on optimistic readings of formal law.[22]

Internal relocation is another common issue. Even if a person cannot live safely in their home town, decision-makers ask whether they could move to another part of the country. For non-state persecution, the answer depends on the reach of the persecutor. Maras have national networks. The Taliban control all of Afghanistan. The 'Ndrangheta operates throughout Italy and abroad. By contrast, a small clan feud in one region of Pakistan may not extend to Karachi or Islamabad. The expert evidence must address this directly.[23]

Conclusion: The Persecutor Does Not Have to Wear a Uniform

Non-state persecution is one of the most important areas of modern refugee law. The 1951 Refugee Convention does not require the persecutor to be a state official. UNHCR, the EU, the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia all accept this. What matters is that the harm is real, that it is for a Convention reason, and that the state cannot or will not protect the person against it.

For decision-makers, the lesson is to focus on protection in practice, not laws on paper. For asylum seekers and their lawyers, the lesson is to build a careful evidential picture — country reports, expert evidence, personal testimony — that shows why protection is unavailable. For expert witnesses, the role is essential: only an experienced country expert can explain the gap between formal law and lived reality. Non-state persecution will continue to dominate asylum dockets in the years ahead. Getting the analysis right protects the people who need protection most.

A claim against a non-state persecutor needs evidence of that actor's reach and the state's response, which a country expert found through our expert witness finder can provide.