Woman who says she was trafficked from Nigeria wins court challenge

A woman who claimed she was trafficked here after being involved in prostitution in Nigeria as a child has won her High Court case over being refused international protection.

The International Protection Appeals Tribunal (IPAT) effectively stated that, because the woman had “managed to sustain herself” working as a prostitute for a period, she would be in a better position than some to resettle in Nigeria if returned there, Mr Justice Max Barrett said on Tuesday.

The period at issue included part of her childhood when she was a victim of child sexual abuse, he noted.

It was for the woman herself to determine how she now chose to live her life. But the notion Ireland could countenance the return of any woman, in this case an accepted victim of child sexual abuse, to any country by saying she could sustain herself by returning to prostitution is “so egregiously offensive to the inherent and natural human dignity of women”, and of men in the case of male prostitutes, that the IPAT’s reasoning cannot be held to have “any legal weight”, the judge said.

The IPAT was obliged, but had failed, to assess the woman’s claim she is at risk of persecution by family members in Nigeria arising from her involvement in prostitution there if she is returned, he ruled.

In a judgment on Tuesday, he quashed the IPAT refusal and directed it to reconsider the woman’s application in line with his findings.

Now in her 20s, the woman sought judicial review against IPAT and the Minister for Justice over the IPAT refusal of protection in 2015. She had sought protection on two grounds.

The first was she had worked as a prostitute in Nigeria as a minor, was disowned by her family for that and feared their reaction if returned there. The second was she was trafficked to Ireland and forced to work as a prostitute here and feared the response of the traffickers if returned to Nigeria.

IPAT accepted she worked as a prostitute in Nigeria and was disowned by her family for that but had not accepted they had attacked and targeted her. Nor did it accept she was trafficked to Ireland or faced threats from any traffickers if returned.

The judge said IPAT erred in finding it was not obliged to assess the forward-looking fear of family as actors of persecution, solely on the basis of the woman having acted as a prostitute.

IPAT was required to investigate the woman’s claimed fear of her family members in circumstances where it accepted she had made such a claim.

IPAT unlawfully failed to assess whether she had a well-founded fear of persecution by her extended family and conflated this with its assessment of a well-founded fear of being persecuted on the basis of being a victim of trafficking, he found.

IPAT came to an unreasonable decision by relying on country of origin (COI) information dealing only with the risk faced by victims of trafficking returned to Nigeria without due regard to COI concerning the risk faced by women from familial/societal factors, he said. IPAT also failed to provide adequate reasons for preferring certain COI over other COI, he ruled.