WASHINGTON. Dec II: The administration of US President Bill Clinton Is proposing to make it easier for victims of domestic violence abroad to win asylum in the United States, reports 11*8.

Under changes In the Immigration rules proposed by the Justice Department and the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INSO), battered women maybe able to claim "membership in a particular social group" under US law. a status which should make asylum judges more inclined to grant them asylum than In the past.

The changes bring US asylum law for domestic abuse into Une with similar reforms Implemented by Britain, Australia. New Zealand and Canada in recent years. It has been favoured by immigration-rights and womens groups who argued that domestic violence amounts to real persecution for

many women In societies where they lack the ability to gain redress or protection from their abusers.

The rules changes was prompted by a controversial case involving a Guatemalan woman. Rodl Alvarado Pena, who suffered repeated beatings by her husband over come than 10 years before fleeing to San Francisco where she currently Ilves.

An Immigration Judge here originally granted Alvarado asylum on the grounds dial she belonged to a persecuted social group defined as "Guatemalan women who have been Involved Intimately with Guatemalan male companions, who believe that women are to live under male domination. But a majority in a sharply-divided, 15-member Immigration appeals court Inst year decided that she could not win asylum because there was no Indication that her

husband threatened any other members of that group of Guatemalan women other than herself. As such a group did not exist, it said, she could not claim membership In it.

The court also found that Alvarado had failed to show that her husband beat her because she was opposed to jjairlarchal culture.

Under US law. a person can be granted asylum only If he or she establishes a well-founded fear of persecution If returned home on account of one of five protected grounds: race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membersnip In a part lei liar social group.

Essentially, the difference between the immigration Judge and the immigration appeals court was over the question of whether battered women could qualify as a "particular social group."