The Women of Al-Hol: Deservingness and the Politics of Vulnerability and Security

This article analyses the relationship between security- and vulnerability-based reasoning in the interpretation of extraterritorial human rights obligations, taking the repatriation of adult Finnish women from the al-Hol Camp as an example. It discusses the function of vulnerabilization and securitization as qualification tools within human rights law to manage access to rights protection establishing a theoretical framework of deservingness. Fundamentally, the article argues that states often approach the human rights of those who have put themselves and others at risk differently from the human rights of those who are recognized as vulnerable. The women in al-Hol have often been the objects of othering and stereotyping, and the question of their vulnerability has largely escaped attention. Through the example of these women, the article illustrates how deserving and undeserving identities are constructed in societal discussions and in international human rights law.