The applicant E.A. originally comes from a farmer family in the Edo state in Nigeria and moved to live with her uncle when she was 16. The uncle threatened and sexually abused her. She became pregnant and had a forced abortion before fleeing her uncle´s place and living on the streets. A woman T. offered to help and organise her travel to Europe for which in return E.A. was asked to pay once she reached Europe. E.A. was first smuggled to Libya in 2016 and then sold twice to organised groups for sexual exploitation. After 8 months, E.A. managed to escape Libya and arrived by sea in Italy where she obtained false documentation to travel by train to Czechia in July 2017.
E.A. settled and worked in a strip club in Czechia. She applied for international protection on 21 May 2019 on the grounds that life was difficult in Nigeria and that she feared being at risk of sexual abuse and threats by her uncle if she returned. The applicant did not know whether she had previously applied for international protection in Italy.
The Ministry of the Interior (MoI) decided on 4 September 2020 that the applicant should not be granted any form of international protection and found the applicant's story to be inconsistent so that she was not considered as a vulnerable person within the meaning of Section 2(2) of Article 1 lit. (i) of the Act on Asylum.
On 20 April 2021, the Regional Court in Hradec Králové annulled the MoI decision of 4 September 2020 and concluded that the MoI did not sufficiently address the question of whether E.A had been trafficked and also failed to sufficiently ascertain the facts of the circumstances that led E.A. to leave her country of origin.
The Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the MoI’s cassation complaint on 20 September 2021. The court found that the MoI did not take into consideration specific social and economic circumstances of the applicant (being abused by her uncle since she was a minor, lack of accommodation and financial means of subsistence) and disregarded the normal practices of trafficking in women. The court noted that the applicant was not the subject of an assessment on whether she was a vulnerable person in view of the sexual abuse suffered in the country of origin.
In further proceedings, the MoI conducted an extensive supplementary interview with the applicant on 16 August 2022. E.A. detailed her story and indicated she could not go back to her family as they would not believe her with regard to the sexual abuse suffered. She entered into contact with her family over Facebook once in Europe but had irregular contact with her siblings. She has a difficult relationship with her father and her mother had passed away. The MoI supplemented the file with country-of-origin information.
On 3 August 2023, the MoI found that none of the asylum-relevant grounds were met with regard to the applicant. The MoI recognised that the applicant met the definition of a vulnerable person and the story presented to be credible and that the applicant had been a victim of human trafficking. However, according to the MoI, trafficking took place "on the territory of Libya", i.e. not in the applicant’s country of origin, and therefore did not consider a risk of being trafficked again when returned to Nigeria or at risk of revenge by the uncle. The MoI concluded that neither the intermediary, the woman T, nor the applicant's family were involved in human trafficking of E.A., so there was no reason why she could not return to Nigeria, as Nigeria had facilities for assistance to victims of trafficking in human beings. Regarding the fear of abuse and threats by the uncle, the MoI added that she was an adult woman able to take care of herself in a foreign country, out of her uncle's control, and that in Nigeria she could settle in a different place.
The MoI concluded that the reason why the applicant was seeking asylum was to legalise her residence for the purpose of employment and therefore did not find that Section 12(b) of the Asylum Law had been complied with, since the applicant left the country in order to find a better life abroad and at a time when she was out of reach of her uncle.
The MoI shared a similar view with regard to subsidiary protection, considering that the applicant was not at risk of degrading and inhuman treatment in her country of origin. E.A. would be a literate woman with life experience who was able to take care of herself in a foreign country, beyond the influence of her uncle, and could turn to the relevant authorities or organisations in Nigeria for help.
The MoI considered that the return of the applicant was not contrary to the international obligations since the trafficking took place in another country than Nigeria and there would be no threat of being retrafficked or of revenge of traffickers for fleeing. The applicant may meet her family with whom she was in contact, and she had already escaped from her uncle’s influence as an actor in her abuse.
The MoI also did not find a reason to grant humanitarian protection since the applicant was a healthy person and did not mention any consequences of years of abuse by her uncle or several months of trafficking in Libya.
The applicant appealed this decision on 15 September 2023 on the grounds that when assessing humanitarian protection, the MoI did not examine the practices of brutal modern slavery and her trade in Libya but only considered the socio-economic situation of the applicant. The applicant considered that, as an independent unaccompanied young woman who had been victim of sexual abuse and trafficking in the past, she belonged to a particular social group of being particularly vulnerable within the meaning of Section 12(b) of the Asylum Act.
The Regional Court in Ostrava found the action admissible and well-founded under consideration of Section 32(9) of the Asylum Act and Article 46 of the Procedures Directive on the obligation of Member States to provide an effective remedy.
The Regional Court looked at the complexity, interconnections, and several phases that human trafficking implies and at the definition of trafficking in human beings contained in Article 3(a) of the Protocol on the Prevention, Suppression and Punishment of Trafficking in Persons (“Palermo Protocol”), in particular women and children, which complements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organised Crime of 15 November 2000 signed by Czechia. The court considered that the MoI did not sufficiently evaluate the interconnection between networks of smugglers and traffickers, i.e. that irregular migrants using the services of smugglers with whom they have voluntarily concluded an agreement, may also become victims of trafficking if the services they originally requested turn into a scenario with elements of abuse and exploitation. It was also noted that trafficking in human beings is a process consisting of a series of interconnected acts which, to a significant extent, interfere with the fundamental human rights and freedoms of an individual or group of persons. Its characteristics are (a) acts of hiring, transporting, transferring, holding or receiving persons; (b) means – the threat of force or the use of force or other forms of coercion, kidnapping, deceit, fraud, abuse of power or vulnerable situation and the provision or acceptance of money or other benefit to obtain the consent of the person controlling the other person; and (c) the purpose – exploitation of the victim, which is, inter alia, the abuse of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation.
In the light of the above, the court found that the MoI did not sufficiently look into how T. was potentially involved in the applicant’s trafficking when meeting the applicant on the streets in a situation of distress (under-educated young woman, from 16 years of age outside the home environment, sexually abused, lacking funds, lacking accommodation, forced by circumstances to live in poor conditions etc.), and offering ‘help’ by providing her housing and then organising her transport to Europe.
The court also noted that MoI’s conclusion that the trade with the applicant took place only in Libya also differs from the content of the administrative file, namely the applicant’s statements and, in particular, the information on the country of origin (such as the Nigerian National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Human Beings -‘Naptip’, the European Asylum Support Office – ‘EASO’, Human Rights Watch, International Organisation for Migration – ‘IOM’, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs) provided by the MoI itself.
Based on COI on Nigeria and smugglers networks operation information, the court considered that it was clear from the applicant’s asylum story that the she had a profile of a typical victim of trafficking in human beings and the circumstances in which she left Nigeria also corresponded to the description of the functioning of trafficking in human beings in the region, so that the applicant has already fallen victim of human trafficking in Nigeria where T. offered help and misused E.A’s vulnerable situation.
Thus, in the subsequent proceedings, after considering the main issue of the present case, the assessment of the applicant as a victim of trafficking in human beings, the court held that MoI will reassess whether the applicant could be considered as a member of a particular social group and qualify for asylum under Section 12(b) of the Law on asylum, subsidiary protection or humanitarian protection.
The court further noted that in the contested decision, the MoI had concluded that there was no risk of persecution in the applicant’s country of origin, since Nigeria has facilities such as NAPTIP and services to assist victims of trafficking in human beings. The court looked into detail in the workings of the Nigerian anti-trafficking agency, NAPTIP, and concluded that this agency did not successfully fight trafficking and there was no dedicated programme to help people who have experienced trafficking in human beings and who would like to return to their country of origin. Therefore, the court noted that the MoI did not sufficiently assess the risks that a return to Nigeria would imply for the applicant.
The Regional Court further pointed out that the actual exercise of forced prostitution could constitute persecution within the meaning of Article 9 of the recast Qualification Directive. The court also noted that in the contested decision, the MoI disregarded the findings from the applicant’s country of origin reports concerning the high risks observed in the region for victims of trafficking to be re-trafficked upon return.
Furthermore, the Regional Court did not agree with the repeated conclusion of the MoI that the applicant was able to take care of herself in the country of origin considering her socio-economic context and her family relations.
As regards the issue of late application for asylum, the court noted that even if a foreign national applies for international protection after several years of residence in the territory of Czechia, this does not exclude that he or she may be at risk of persecution or serious harm in the country of origin.
The court annulled the decision of the MoI of 3 August 2023 and referred the case back for further proceedings.