A Nigerian woman submitted a request for international protection on 22 November 2016 on the grounds that she had left her country to escape poverty. On 17 January 2018, the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA) dismissed the application and issued a return decision.

The applicant filed an appeal against the decision, but it was dismissed by the Federal Administrative Court (BVwG) on 17 April 2018 as unfounded. The applicant submitted a follow-up request on 10 January 2019 and stated that she had left Nigeria for fear of genital mutilation and had been forced into prostitution in Europe and was an alleged victim of trafficking in human beings.

On 24 May 2019, the BFA rejected the applicants request for international protection about asylum and subsidiary protection but granted the applicant a right to residence permit for special protection.

The applicant filed an appeal against the decision and in December 2021, the BVwG dismissed the applicant's appeal against the decision concerning the refugee status, but granted subsidiary protection status. This was based on country-of-origin information on Nigeria, and her case also showed that there was a genuine risk that she would be re-trafficked by human trafficking organisations. As a result, she qualified for subsidiary protection status.

However, the BVwG ruled that the applicant could not be recognised as a refugee, since her status as victim of human trafficking does not fulfil the asylum ground of belonging to a ‘social group’ within the meaning of Article 1(A)(2) of the CSF. In addition, not every woman returning from Europe experiences mistreatment and discrimination, as it also depends on the wealth of the woman. As a result, it was held that the existence of a "social" group is not met since there is clearly no defined identity of those persons.

The Constitutional Court addressed the interpretation of the reason for asylum as belonging to a specific social group of women returning to Nigeria who have become victims of human trafficking and who have freed themselves from it. The applicant's complaints were upheld by the Constitutional Court on the basis that the disputed BVwG conclusions lacked a clear justification for why the applicant was not a member of a specific social group.

The court made reference to the CJEU case law on Article 10(1) which noted that the existence of a ‘social group’ must meet two cumulative conditions: 1) the members of the group must share innate characteristics of a background that cannot be changed or share characteristics or a belief that are so significant to identity or conscience that the person concerned should not be forced to renounce it. 2) this group must have a clearly defined identity, since the society around them sees them as different.

The first requirement for the establishment of a "social group" had been satisfied since the court had not questioned that Nigerian women who are victims of human trafficking share a common background through their sexual exploitation. Regarding the requirement of having a "clearly defined identity," the BVwG had stated that Nigerian women who had been victims of human trafficking and returned from Europe without assets were subject to social stigmatization and that the applicant belonged to the very group of victims of human trafficking who could anticipate being stigmatized if they returned.

The Constitutional Court ruled that this was precisely where the “clearly defined identity” of this group presented itself, as the society around them regarded them as different. The BVwG's justification that not all women who are victims of human trafficking who return to Nigeria are treated identically but rather that each woman's particular circumstances matter, which is why a "clearly defined identity" is lacking, was considered unpersuasive.