Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-002152

First-tier Tribunal No: PA/66389/2023
LP/09379/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

16th of September 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE HOFFMAN
DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE CHANA

Between

A.R. (ALBANIA)
(ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Q Ahmed of Counsel, instructed by Legafit Solicitors
For the Respondent: Ms S McKenzie, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House on 4 September 2025

Order Regarding Anonymity

Pursuant to rule 14 of the Tribunal Procedure (Upper Tribunal) Rules 2008, the appellant is granted anonymity.

No-one shall publish or reveal any information, including the name or address of the appellant, likely to lead members of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS

Introduction
1. The appellant, who is a citizen of Albania, appeals with permission against the decision of First-tier Tribunal Judge Monson (“the judge”) promulgated on 2 March 2025 dismissing her appeal against the respondent’s decision dated 4 December 2023 to refuse her claim for asylum.
2. For the reasons set out below, we would dismiss this appeal.
Anonymity
3. The First-tier Tribunal made an anonymity order in respect of the appellant. There has been no application to set aside that order. While we recognise the strong factors in favour of open justice, in the present case we are satisfied that it is appropriate to continue the anonymity order given that the appellant is a recognised victim of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Background
4. The appellant was born in Albania in 1997. In 2015, her parents arranged for her to marry a man. However, in 2019 she entered into an extramarital relationship with another man, LK. After her brother spotted her with LK, the appellant confessed to her husband. She unsuccessfully asked him for a divorce. LK therefore suggested to her that they run away to the UK. They left Albania on 7 September 2020 and travelled to Belgium. There, LK left the appellant in a house with approximately 20 Albanian men who each sexually abused her. LK returned to the house in early December 2020 and arranged for the appellant to be taken to London by lorry. However, the appellant escaped from the lorry when it arrived in the UK on 4 December 2020. She called her brother in Albania who sent her brother-in-law to collect her. The appellant has been living with him since then.
5. The appellant claimed asylum on 21 December 2020. On 30 December 2020, the Single Competent Authority (“SCA”) decided that there were reasonable grounds to accept that the appellant might be a victim of modern slavery. Following a full consideration of her case, on 27 October 2023, the SCA issued a conclusive grounds decision accepting that she had been sexually exploited in Albania and Belgium during September and December 2020 and was intended for sexual exploitation in the UK after 4 December 2020.
6. However, on 6 December 2023, the respondent refused to grant the appellant asylum. While the respondent accepted that the appellant had been sexually exploited, she decided that the appellant could seek the protection of the authorities in Albania or else relocate to another party of the country in order to avoid LK.
The appeal before the First-tier Tribunal
7. The appellant’s appeal against the respondent’s decision was heard by the First-tier Tribunal on 17 February 2025. However, in a decision promulgated on 2 March 2025 the judge dismissed the appeal. The judge found that the appellant was not vulnerable to re-trafficking by LK or others and that there was sufficiency of protection available to her in Albania.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
8. On 27 June 2025, Upper Tribunal Judge Kebede granted the appellant permission to appeal on two grounds:
a. In finding that the appellant had been sexually exploited in Belgium only, the judge failed to give reasons for departing from the SCA’s findings that the appellant had been sexually exploited in Albania and Belgium.
b. The judge carried out an inadequate assessment of the appellant’s experience of sexual exploitation by failing to take into account that the appellant was sexually exploited in Albania as well as Belgium.
The hearing
9. We heard submissions from both Mr Ahmed and Ms McKenzie. These are recorded in the record of proceedings and are not rehearsed here except where necessary to do so.
10. At the end of the hearing, we reserved our decision.
Findings – Error of Law
11. As Mr Ahmed accepted during the hearing, the two grounds of appeal overlap and we therefore deal with both together.
12. The appellant’s case rests on what the judge said at [25] of his decision:
“The circumstances of the appellant’s initial trafficking were that she was tricked into sexual exploitation in Belgium by an Albanian man in Durres with whom she had fallen in love. Aside from the fact that she was estranged from her husband, she was not in a vulnerable situation in Albania. She was studying for a Masters in Accounting at the University of Durres, with her tuition fees being paid for by her husband. She also owned, or at least was employed by, a shop in her name in Tirana which rented out dresses.”
13. According to the appellant, the judge’s finding that “she was tricked into sexual exploitation in Belgium” is at odds with the SCA’s findings, in particular that they “found the following types of exploitation occurred: Sexual exploitation in Albania and Belgium during September 2020 to December 2020” (underlining added). In her second ground of appeal, the appellant argues that this failure demonstrates that the judge failed to appreciate that the trafficking process had begun in Albania as LK had lured her to Belgium on a false promise and that this in turn undermined the judge’s reasons for finding that the appellant would not be vulnerable to re-trafficking on return.
14. However, we do not accept that the judge’s findings are contrary to those of the SCA. What the judge said in the first sentence of [25] was that the appellant “was tricked into sexual exploitation in Belgium by an Albanian man in Durres with whom she had fallen in love.” The appellant in her grounds places the emphasis on “in Belgium” but overlooks that the judge also says “by an Albanian man in Durres”. We are satisfied that on a plain reading of that sentence what the judge meant was that the appellant was tricked while in Durres into going to Belgium, where she was sexually exploited. The judge was therefore fully cognisant of the fact that the grooming process that led to the appellant being taken to Belgium began in her home country.
15. We would also note that while the grooming process began in Albania, it was not in dispute that the physical element of the sexual exploitation took place in Belgium. This was accepted by the appellant in her oral evidence and her counsel at the First-tier Tribunal hearing: see [17] and [22].
16. For these reasons, we are satisfied that the judge’s findings on the risk of re-trafficking are unimpeachable. The judge made his findings in accordance with the country guidance case of TD and AD (Trafficked women) CG [2016] UKUT 00092 (IAC). He took into account that the appellant was highly educated; she was multilingual; she had owned, or been employed by, a shop; she was unlikely, as a result of her experience, to be tricked abroad again; she was from a city, not a poor rural area; she came from a relatively prosperous middle class family; she did not have an illegitimate child; and she had accepted that she would likely be able to find work on return. The judge also found that the appellant would be supported by her family, in particular her brother, on return; and that there was no evidence that LK had any influence over the police.
Conclusion – Error of Law
17. We therefore conclude that the judge’s decision is not vitiated by a material error of law. It shall therefore stand.

Notice of Decision
The appeal is dismissed.

M R Hoffman

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

5th September 2025