A, Nigerian applicant, applied for asylum in 2018 alleging to be of Edo ethnicity and Pentecostal religion.  The SEM found, during the Dublin interview, that the applicant obtained previously a visa in Italy, with a fake passport and resided there for some years. The SEM did not enter into the matter of asylum request, rejected the application and pronounced the transfer to Italy, with immediate implementation. Following an appeal, the SEM annulled its decision not to entre into the asylum request and analysed it on the merits, rejected it for the international protection request and granted temporary admission and annulled the execution of the transfer from Switzerland.

The applicant appealed against the decision and requested to be granted refugee status on grounds related to a risk for her life and physical integrity upon return. She mentioned that she travelled to Italie after being helped by another Nigerian women to whom she engaged loyalty and who forced her to prostitute in Italy to compensate for the help received. The applicant further mentioned to have been traumatised by the experiences in Italy and that although Nigeria took steps to provide assistance to victims of human trafficking, she would still risk persecution upon return and invokes a discriminatory treatment based on gender and considers that females, victims of human trafficking belong to a particular special group (bases her arguments on a French CNDA decision of 24 February 2020, O. v. OFPRA).

The Federal Administrative Court rejected her appeal as manifestly unfounded and noted that the applicant did not demonstrate that Nigerian authorities would not offer protection and that, although in particular situations, victims of human trafficking are subject to social exclusion and this can be a situation assimilated to persecution, in the applicant's case, on the contrary, there are no reasons to conclude to an absence of state protection against prostitution networks or that other actors would behave differently and would render it difficult to re-establish a life in Nigeria due to an attached image of prostitute. Precisely, the applicant was in constant contact with her family, especially with her mother and there is no indication in the file that she would be rejected by her family upon return.