Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-003243
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/58523/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

30th May 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANE

Between

BM
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

Secretary of State for the Home Department
Respondent

Representation:

For the Appellant: Mr Forrest
For the Respondent: Ms Rushforth, Senior Presenting Officer

Heard at Edinburgh on 27 May 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant is a female citizen of Ethiopia. By a decision promulgated on 14 April 2025, Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Malik KC found that the First-tier Tribunal had erred in law such that its decision fell to be set aside. He directed that the decision be remade in the Upper Tribunal. I conducted the resumed hearing in the Upper Tribunal at Edinburgh on 27 May 2025 and reserved my decision which I now give.
Background
2. The background to the appellant’s appeal is set out in Judge Malik KC’s decision at [2-4]. At [26-27], Judge Malik KC wrote:
There is no challenge to the Judge’s findings on (a) the credibility of the Appellant’s factual account, (b) the risk of persecution based on conversion to Christianity, (c) the risk of persecution at the hands of her family relating to FGM and forced marriage, and (d) the sufficiency of protection in the home area. The Judge’s unchallenged findings, at [16]-[25], shall stand and are preserved.
In brief summary, the First-tier Tribunal did not find that the appellant would be at risk on account of her religion [18]; that she ‘has already been subjected to treatment amounting to persecution which constitutes a serious indication of a well-founded fear of persecution on return at the hands of her family and/or A if she were to be returned to her home area’[19]; that is ‘reasonably likely that if the Appellant and her children were to be returned to her home area in Ethiopia, there would not be a sufficiency of protection for them due to the evidence cited above regarding the impact of the traditional justice system on the rights of women and girls predominantly in rural parts of the country’ [23]. Accordingly, the issues which remain to be determined are (a) whether it would be unduly harsh to expect the Appellant and her children to internally relocate to Addis Ababa, and (b) whether their removal from the United Kingdom would be incompatible with Article 8.
Article 8 ECHR
3. At the outset of the resumed hearing, Ms Rushforth, Senior Presenting Officer for the Secretary of State, told me that the appeal on Article 8 ECHR grounds was conceded. The appellant’s husband, with who she lives in the United Kingdom with their two children, has recently been granted refugee status. Accordingly, the appeal proceeded only on the issue of whether the option of internal flight within Ethiopia is available to the appellant.
Submissions
4. Mr Forrrest, counsel for the appellant before the First-tier Tribunal and the Upper Tribunal, submitted that the background material which the First-tier Tribunal had failed to consider (a failure which had led Judge Malik KC to set aside its decision) is itself sufficient to show that it would be unduly harsh for the appellant to relocate within Ethiopia. Mr Forrest’s skeleton argument summarises that material as follows:
Report by USDoS (CB 74-80) – that women are exposed to the risk of rape and sexual violence (CB 74) and children to that of sexual abuse (CB 80).
Report by Amnesty International – CB 286 – 289 – records (CB 283) reports of sexual and gender based violence in areas where fighting has broken out; 2023 Report by USDoS – CB 338-405 – at CB 382 to 386 there is a sections dealing with problems facing women (CB 382 – 386). It is noted that the law does not criminalise all sexual violence against women, that gender based violence is widespread and the incidence of FGM is showing no signs of a significant decrease. At CB 391-392 child abuse is said to be widespread.
Mr Forrest submitted that the material showed that there had been little, if any, improvement in the situation of women in Ethiopia year on year. He submitted that there was now no prospect of the appellant’s husband returning the Ethiopia with her and that the children would also remain in the United Kingdom where there father now has refugee status. He questioned whether members of the husband’s family would be willing to assist the appellant if she returned alone to Ethiopia.
5. For the Secretary of State, Ms Rushforth submitted that the appellant could reasonably relocate to the cities of Addis Ababa, Dire Dawa or Mek'ele. The appellant did not fear state actors in Ethiopia and had skills (as a chef) which would assist her in establishing herself outside her home area. She submitted (as Mr Forrest acknowledged) that much of the background material was generic dealing with the position of women in general rather that those having circumstances similar to the appellant.
Analysis
6. There is force in Ms Rushforth’s submissions regarding the rather generic nature of the material concerning the problems facing women in Ethiopia upon which the appellant relies. Having said that, it is clear from the US State Department 2022 Country Report on Ethiopia (cited by Judge Malik KC in his error of law decision at [21]) that discrimination and societal abuse of women is widespread, including in the urban areas to which the Secretary of State proposes the appellant can relocate. It is axiomatic that such treatment is more likely to affect single women rather than those with male partners. A new factor in the appeal is, as Mr Forrest emphasised, the grant of refusal status to the appellant’s husband. Although the First-tier Tribunal had assessed internal flight on the basis that the husband (his asylum claim was at that time not determined) would not travel with her to Ethiopia, the grant of refugee status and the likelihood that the appellant’s children would not travel with their mother to Ethiopia are characteristics of the appellant which should be taken into account. I accept that, if the children do not return with the appellant, then this may affect the willingness of the husband’s family to help the appellant.
7. Having considered the evidence and background material carefully, together with the personal characteristics of the appellant, I am just persuaded that it would be unduly harsh for her to exercise the option of internal flight to the cities of Ethiopia cited by the Secretary of State. The appellant would be a stranger in those areas. She has children but would be separated from them and her male partner, factors likely to create suspicion and possibly hostility within any community within which she sought to settle. She has employment skills but I find that these are not such as to make integration and earning sufficient money to subsist easy for the appellant. She would have to deal with these problems against a background of the general societal discrimination and widespread abuse, including violence, experienced by single women in urban and rural areas, as outlined in the US State Department Report of 2022. In the circumstances, I conclude that it would be unduly harsh to expect the appellant to relocate within Ethiopia. Accordingly, I remake the decision allowing her appeal on asylum and human rights (Article 8 ECHR) grounds.
Notice of Decision
I have remade the decision. The appellant’s appeal is allowed on asylum and human rights (Article 8 ECHR) grounds.

C. N. Lane

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

Dated: 27 May 2025