African migrant can stay in UK after claiming he was made sex slave by woman
A migrant from Africa has won an asylum case after claiming a woman used him as a sex slave. The asylum seeker from Sierra Leone said he was taken in by the woman after arriving in the UK and forced to satisfy her sexually.
The anonymous migrant claimed he was also made to have sex with her friends against his will.
She threw the man out after the unnamed woman refused her demands. In an asylum application, he said he had political ties in his home country which meant there was a risk of his being re-trafficked.
His asylum claim was successful, though the Home Office appealed against the decision. However, their claim was left "in shambles" and has now been thrown out by an immigration judge, who has allowed the migrant to stay in the UK.
The migrant entered the UK in February 2020 and claimed asylum in January the following year on the grounds of his political leanings. He claimed that while in Sierra Leone, he had been a member of the All People's Congress - the main opposition party to the country's president, Julius Bio.
The migrant said he had participated in elections, delegated conferences and made financial contributions. He also claimed to have attended a by-election where he was attacked by opposition thugs who suspected they would not win the election.
In the attack, he was injured, but managed to escape to the north of the country. He was later given a passport to help him flee the country and arrived in the UK.
The Upper Tribunal heard: "Upon arrival in the UK, the [migrant] was met at the airport and taken to the house of DS, where he handed over his passport and was made to work from 5am until 10pm every day.
"Despite promises of payment, after several months the [migrant] left the house with no money or food and then slept rough until he was taken in by a Nigerian woman.
"The [migrant] says that he was required to clean the Nigerian woman's house and required to have sex with her and her friends against his will."
It heard that the migrant said when he refused, he was denied food and sometimes thrown out of the house. The tribunal heard this went on for three months until in December 2020 the woman told him to have sex with her in exchange for food.
When he rejected her, she hit him, threw him out of the house and threw the food in the bin, the tribunal heard.
The First-Tier Tribunal accepted there was a "well-found feat of persecution" in Sierra Leone and allowed the claim on human rights grounds.
But the Home Office claimed there were inadequate reasons to believe there was a risk of re-trafficking. The case was sent to the Upper Tribunal of the Immigration and Asylum Chamber.
Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge David Clarke concluded the Home Office had not provided proof there was no risk of re-trafficking and this left the rest of the claim "in shambles".
Judge Clarke said: "I find no evidence before me to support the suggestion that the Secretary of State for the Home Department argued before the First Tier Tribunal that they were not at risk of re-trafficking. This, I find, leaves the remainder of the ground in shambles."