Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-003200
First-tier Tribunal No: PA/56174/2024
LP/00983/2025

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

19th June 2026

Before

Deputy upper tribunal JUDGE Kelly

Between

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Appellant
and

Fk
(anonymity ordered)
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Lams, Counsel instructed by Kilby Solicitors
For the Respondent: Mr Diwcynz, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Phoenix House, Bradford on the 22nd May 2026

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 member of the public to identify the appellant. Failure to comply with this order could amount to a contempt of court.

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction and background
1. I have decided to maintain the anonymity order made by the First-tier Tribunal (the ‘FtT’) in these proceedings for the same reasons that were given by Upper Tribunal Judge Lodato in his decision of the 17th March 2026, wherein he found that the FtT had made a material error of law and directed this appeal be re-made in the Upper Tribunal.
2. On the 27th March 2026, the Principal Resident Judges of Field House transferred the appeal to a differently constituted Tribunal, having exercised the power to do so delegated to them by the Chamber President. Hence the matter came before me.
Scope of the remaking
3. Before the FtT, the appellant claimed that as an Albanian woman with minimal education and no family support, she had endured years of domestic abuse at the hands of her in-laws, had been placed at risk through an inter-family blood feud arising from a killing committed by her husband’s uncle, and had later been deceived, violently sexually exploited and forced into prostitution in Tirana. It was argued on her behalf that returning her to Albania would expose her to renewed persecution from her in-laws, the blood-feud family, and those who had previously sexually exploited her, all against the backdrop of ineffective state protection, endemic corruption, societal stigma towards trafficking victims, her serious mental health conditions, and her inability to live safely or anonymously anywhere else within Albania.
4. During the hearing before Judge Lodato, the parties had apparently agreed that “paragraph 22 of the [FtT] decision could only be sensibly read as a finding that the appellant had provided credible evidence in support of her claim to have been a victim of sexual exploitation and was at risk of being exploited in a similar fashion in the future either by the same men who had done so in the past, or others” [paragraph 4 of Judge Lodato’s decision, emphasis added]. This reading of paragraph 22 should however be qualified by the express finding, contained within its final sentence, that, “the appellant could take up life in either location [suggested by the respondent as a place to which she could relocate] and would not be sought by those who abused her in the past.” [emphasis added]. Given that it is unclear from Judge Lodato’s decision whether he intended to preserve this important qualification, I decided to err on the side of caution and invited the representatives to address me on the issue (considered at paragraphs 13 to 16, below).
5. The only ground of appeal that was pursued before Upper Tribunal Judge Lodato at a hearing in Bradford on the 2nd March 2026, was that the FtT judge had failed to provide adequate reasons for, “finding that the appellant could reasonably internally relocate or turn to the state for sufficient protection” [4]. Mr Diwcynz, who appeared both before Upper Tribunal Judge Lodato and before me, conceded before Judge Lodato that the FtT judge’s reasons, “did not explain why he rejected the expert evidence going, in particular, to why internal relocation would not be reasonable”; also, that the judge had not given “meaningful consideration” to the expert report of Miranda Vickers, dated the 11th November 2024 [5]. Upper Tribunal Judge Lodato cited the following passage from section 11 of that report as demonstrating what he (Judge Lodato) characterized as, “the bleak prospects for successful reintegration in a place of internal relocation” [9] -
[…] Consequently, a lone woman living far from her family home will likely be viewed with deep suspicion regarding her moral character and classified by her neighbours as a ‘loose’ woman and thus rejected and stigmatised, which could result in her being socially ostracised. This is especially so if the woman is seen to be living alone with no visible husband or family network around her. If it becomes publicly known that she has worked as a prostitute regardless of whether she was forced into prostitution, she would be completely ostracised by the entire community, such is the stigma attached to prostitution.
6. Upper Tribunal Judge Lodoto therefore directed that the appeal be re-made in the Upper Tribunal, setting out the scope of the re-making in the following terms -
It was not suggested that I should go behind the judge’s findings on the absence of risk on the strength of being subject to domestic violence in future or on account of a remote blood feud involving the appellant’s estranged husband. I therefore preserve the judge’s findings of fact at paragraphs [20] and [21] of the decision. I am not minded to preserve the conclusion reached on the Article 8 claim because this involved consideration of the existence of very significant obstacles to integration which overlap considerably with the issue of the reasonableness of internal relocation. I direct that underlying decision is remade in the Upper Tribunal.
Preliminary issue
7. Mr Diwcynz raised the question of whether it was necessary for leave to be given for the appellant to adduce a ‘supplementary report’ prepared by Miranda Vickers on the 16th March 2026; that is to say, the day before Upper Tribunal Judge Lodato heard the ‘error of law’ aspect of this appeal. However, whilst it would undoubtedly have been incumbent upon the appellant at that stage to explain why the evidence in the supplementary report had not been made available to the FtT, this question does not seem to me to arise at the stage of re-making. I therefore admit it for this purpose.
Analysis
8. The hearing proceeded by way of submissions from the representatives without oral evidence.
9. In his submissions, Mr Lams provided an exhaustive review of both the Albanian country situation reports of Ms Miranda Vickers and the psychiatric report of Dr Pranveer Singh, each of whom (as was noted by the FtT judge) is eminently qualified to give expert opinion within their respective fields. He further submitted that the contents of these reports clearly demonstrated that the appellant could not reasonably be expected to relocate within Albania to avoid the risk of being re-trafficked and that she would be unable to access sufficient state protection from the Albanian authorities on return. Mr Diwcynz responded to this submission by reminding me of the decision in TD and AD (Trafficked women) CG [2016] UKUT 00092 (IAC), suggesting that the appellant’s case did not fall within the guidance concerning those who qualified for surrogate protection in the United Kingdom. I therefore start my own analysis by considering that guidance before turning to the representatives’ submissions concerning the appellant’s individual circumstances and the opinions of Ms Vickers and Dr Singh concerning those circumstances.
10. The core guidance in TD and AD can be found in paragraphs (d) to (h) of the headnote, which I set out in full for convenience –
d) In the past few years the Albanian government has made significant efforts to improve its response to trafficking. This includes widening the scope of legislation, publishing the Standard Operating Procedures, implementing an effective National Referral Mechanism, appointing a new Anti-trafficking Co-ordinator, and providing training to law enforcement officials.  There is in general a Horvath-standard sufficiency of protection, but it will not be effective in every case.  When considering whether or not there is a sufficiency of protection for a victim of trafficking her particular circumstances must be considered.
e) There is now in place a reception and reintegration programme for victims of trafficking. Returning victims of trafficking are able to stay in a shelter on arrival, and in ‘heavy cases’ may be able to stay there for up to 2 years. During this initial period after return victims of trafficking are supported and protected. Unless the individual has particular vulnerabilities such as physical or mental health issues, this option cannot generally be said to be unreasonable; whether it is must be determined on a case by case basis.
f) Once asked to leave the shelter a victim of trafficking can live on her own. In doing so she will face significant challenges including, but not limited to, stigma, isolation, financial hardship and uncertainty, a sense of physical insecurity and the subjective fear of being found either by their families or former traffickers.  Some women will have the capacity to negotiate these challenges without undue hardship. There will however be victims of trafficking with characteristics, such as mental illness or psychological scarring, for whom living alone in these circumstances would not be reasonable.  Whether a particular appellant falls into that category will call for a careful assessment of all the circumstances.
g) Re-trafficking is a reality. Whether that risk exists for an individual claimant will turn in part on the factors that led to the initial trafficking, and on her personal circumstances, including her background, age, and her willingness and ability to seek help from the authorities. For a proportion of victims of trafficking, their situations may mean that they are especially vulnerable to re-trafficking, or being forced into other exploitative situations.
h) Trafficked women from Albania may well be members of a particular social group on that account alone. Whether they are at risk of persecution on account of such membership and whether they will be able to access sufficiency of protection from the authorities will depend upon their individual circumstances including but not limited to the following:
1. The social status and economic standing of her family
2. The level of education of the victim of trafficking or her family
3. The victim of trafficking’s state of health, particularly her mental health
4. The presence of an illegitimate child
5. The area of origin
6. Age
7. What support network will be available.
11. The following facts concerning the appellant’s current circumstances are uncontroversial. She is aged 42, single (her husband having abandoned her shortly after their arrival in the United Kingdom), and has four children aged between 7 and 18. She has been in the United Kingdom since August 2022; a period of 3 years and 9 months at the date of hearing. She has been diagnosed by Dr Singh as suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She has low mood, is socially withdrawn, and has a pervasive sense of fear. Her symptoms include emotional numbing and feelings of guilt, disturbed sleep and alterations in her arousal and reactivity, as well as poor concentration. She is easily startled and suffers depressive episodes of moderate severity, loss of confidence and self-esteem, recurrent thoughts of death or suicide, loss of appetite, sleep disturbance, and feelings of anxiety and panic. These symptoms, which fluctuate in their severity, are attributable to her experience of rape and enforced prostitution when in Albania. Her condition is susceptible to treatment by therapy and medication, although it is more likely to be successful if it is provided in what she perceives to be a safe environment [paragraph 19 of Dr Singh’s report].
12. I begin by considering whether the Albanian authorities provide sufficiency of protection for victims of trafficking. Whilst acknowledging that there has been “some improvement” over the past few years in measures taken to protect victims of trafficking, Ms Vickers refers to various country information sources and her own experience in support of her opinion that continued widespread corruption reduces the efficacy of such measures (see her consideration of the tenth question posed by the legal representatives). However, as Mr Diwcynz pointed out, there is a tension between her conclusion and that of the Tribunal in TD and AD (above) and I do not consider that the evidence she cites warrants my departing from the starting point that the Albanian authorities in general provide protection to the appropriate standard to victims of trafficking. However, as with the issue of internal relocation, the question of whether such protection would suffice in the appellant’s case depends upon her individual circumstances, which are further considered below.
13. Mr Lam’s submissions focussed largely upon the appellant’s undoubted subjective fear of the original traffickers tracing her whereabouts, regardless of the area in Albania to which she might otherwise relocate. However, the first question is whether such fear is well-founded. As previously mentioned, the FtT judge’s finding at paragraph 23 of his decision - that there is not a real risk that this would in fact occur – is not directly addressed by Upper Tribunal Judge Lodato in his decision. It was thus unclear whether he intended to preserve that finding. I therefore decided to err on the side of caution by inviting Mr Lams to address me about it and to consider the matter afresh.
14. In their ‘Reasons for Refusal Letter, the respondent relied on MB (internal relocation – burden of proof) Albania [2019] UKUT 00392. However, that is authority only for the proposition that where the respondent has identified a specific area that is said to be safe, the burden of proving that it would be unduly harsh (that is to say, unreasonable) to relocate to that area is one that rests upon the appellant. It does not address the question of whether the area identified by the respondent would be safe in the first place.
15. Ms Vickers was specifically instructed to consider the question of “… the likelihood of [the appellant’s] traffickers finding [her] and her children if they move to another part of the country”. In response, she pointed out that Albania is a very small country with a surface area of just 11,100 square miles and a population of just under three million. She drew attention to the mass internal migration that has taken place from rural to urban areas of Tirana and Durres since the collapse of communism in 1992. She also stated, however, that the mainly younger internal migrants had retained their links to older family members who have tended to remain in their rural villages. She thus opined that it would be very difficult for the appellant to remain anonymous were she internally to relocate within Albania. Ms Vickers referred to several country information reports, including those cited in the respondent’s own Country Policy Information Note [CPIN], as support for this conclusion. She moreover pointed out that the appellant would have to register her address to access essential services and that widespread corruption exposed the registration system to potential compromise.
16. However, as Mr Diwcynz pointed out, whilst this may explain how the traffickers would be capable of tracing the appellant, it does not demonstrate they would have a continued adverse interest in her and that they would thus be motivated to trace her whereabouts should she relocate within Albania. In addressing this point, Mr Lams drew my attention to the record of the appellant’s replies in her asylum interview in which she said that she had been raped by a fellow employee at the hotel in Tirana where she was working at that time, that her assailant had threatened to harm her children if she reported him to the police, and that she was also raped by two other men, one of whom was the owner of the hotel who she heard being referred to as ‘Nico’ [replies to questions 92 to 102]. Mr Lams argued that ‘Nico’ would thus have a continuing interest in harming the appellant for fear she might otherwise report him to the police. The first problem with this argument lies in its circularity. If there is sufficiency of protection from trafficking, then it follows that there must also be sufficiency of protection from those who perpetrate it. I am moreover not persuaded that there is a real risk that Nico’s fear of the appellant identifying him to the police would provide him with sufficient motivation to seek her out following internal relocation given that he did not harm her when he had the opportunity to do so, but instead relied upon the fear of her children being harmed should she report matters to the police. The remaining possibility is that the traffickers may come across her whereabouts as a matter of happenstance. However, like the First-tier Tribunal judge, I am not persuaded that the relatively small geographical area and population of Albania (the principal reason given by Ms Vickers for concluding that the appellant’s fear is “somewhat justified”) means that there is a real risk of this occurring. In short, whilst I accept that the appellant has a genuine subjective fear that she would be traced and harmed by her former traffickers following relocation within Albania, I find that that fear is not well-founded.
17. The remaining question arising from the appellant’s protection claim is whether the appellant’s circumstances and consequent vulnerability place her at general risk of being trafficked. I assume for these purposes, as indeed did the representatives at the hearing, that, as a lone woman who has been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation, the appellant falls to be considered as a member of ‘a particular social group’ for the purposes of the Refugee Convention.
18. Ms Vickers addressed the general risk of the appellant being trafficked on return in (amongst others) the following passage that I have taken from her first report -
Upon return to Albania, the Appellant is likely to be extremely vulnerable and fearful of being located by her husbands’ family and the men who sexually abused her, but also, she is aware of her lack of skills to enable her to cope with day-to-day life in Albania as a single woman with dependent children. It appears that the Appellant’s main fear is for the safety of her children (SEF, 129), particularly her elder daughter of whom the traffickers have a photo. Her vulnerability stems from several factors namely: She is almost totally uneducated having had just two years of schooling; she can neither read or write (SEF, 88), nor can she operate a phone or a computer (SEF, 145). Also, her husband has abandoned her, so she is aware that she will have no family support because her own family have disowned her since they found out about her sexual abuse (SEF, 149). These factors will undoubtably have an adverse effect on the Appellant’s ability to successfully re-integrate into Albanian society should she return to Albania. She is also likely to face other obstacles to re-integration such as societal rejection due to the stigma of being a victim of sexual abuse and no visible family support, as well as financial hardship that I will further explain in other sections of this report. likely to face other obstacles to re-integration such as societal rejection due to the stigma of being a victim of sexual abuse and no visible family support, as well as financial hardship ... .
19. The factors that Ms Vickers considered in this paragraph seem to me to fall into two discrete categories: (1) the appellant’s fear of being re-trafficked by those who originally abused her, and (2) the social and economic obstacles to her integration that the appellant will likely face on return to Albania. I have already explained why I am not persuaded that the appellant’s subjective fear of being traced and harmed by her original abusers is well-founded. I nevertheless recognise that it forms a significant component of the poor state of her mental health and that, to this extent, it remains relevant to the obstacles she would face to her reintegration on return to Albania. However, whilst many of the other factors are in line with those identified at paragraph (h) of the headnote in TD and AD, they also seem to me to pre-date the appellant’s experience of being trafficked; an experience endured notwithstanding that she at that time had the potential support and protection of her husband. I therefore drew the attention of the representatives to the decision of the Court of Appeal in EAV v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2025] EWCA Civ 1677 and offered them an opportunity to address the issue that it raises, namely, the need for a causative link between the appellant’s membership of a particular social group (lone female victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation) and the risk of persecution (re-trafficking) upon which the appeal had thus far been postulated. Neither representative took up that opportunity.
20. In addressing the question of causation, I remind myself that the appellant’s membership of a particular social group need not be the only or even the primary reason for the apprehended persecution. It must nevertheless be an effective reason, and I am not satisfied that her previous experience of being sexually exploited is an effective reason for the apprehended risk of her being re-trafficked on return to Albania. To the contrary, I am satisfied that that experience, and her consequent fear of it being repeated, will likely cause her to avoid any circumstance, such as working in the hospitality sector, in which she perceives there to be a danger of being further sexually exploited. I find that the assumed risk of re-trafficking is in any event attributable to pre-existing factors, such as her lack of education, her consequent economic vulnerability, and her overriding (and understandable) desire to support and protect her children, rather than to her membership of a particular social group.
21. I am nevertheless satisfied that the appellant would be at real risk of persecution on return to Albania by way of societal ostracization resulting from the stigma attaching to female victims of sexual exploitation. This risk is mentioned throughout Ms Vickers’ report, but is perhaps most clearly expressed in the following passage at paragraph 11:
Although there is increasingly more tolerance in Tirana towards victims of trafficking and single women living alone, this only applies in the very centre of the city. In the sprawling suburbs where most of the population live the mentality and customs of their native districts (almost exclusively northern) still survive. Given that the majority of Tirana’s new inhabitants are originally from the north of the country, the same cultural taboos and stigma attached to single women living alone who have suffered sexual abuse will still apply in all but the central, wealthier part of the capital. Consequently, a lone woman living far from her family home will likely be viewed with deep suspicion regarding her moral character and classified by her neighbours as a ‘loose’ woman and thus rejected and stigmatised, which could result in her being socially ostracised. This is especially so if the woman is seen to be living alone with no visible husband or family network around her. If it becomes publicly known that she has worked as a prostitute regardless of whether she was forced into prostitution, she would be completely ostracised by the entire community, such is the stigma attached to prostitution
In my judgement, the severity and intensity of the conduct towards the appellant, thus described, crosses the threshold from one of simple discrimination to one of persecution. I also find that there is a real risk of members of her local community in Albania inferring both past and current involvement in prostitution from her circumstances as a woman living alone with no visible husband or family network around her. I accordingly find that she qualifies as a refugee under the Refugee Convention. Whilst appreciating that the appellant’s appeal was not put on this basis, I consider it to be one that is ‘Robinson obvious’.
22. Furthermore, Ms Vickers provides evidence-based reasons for her opinion that the stigma attaching to survivors of sexual exploitation is one that is likely to compound the pre-existing obstacles to the appellant’s integration arising from her lack of education and child-care responsibilities as a single parent; obstacles that cannot be overcome by internal relocation within Albania, a UK re-settlement grant of £3,000, medical provision for her mental health problems, or a place of limited duration in a shelter provided by the Albanian authorities. I am accordingly satisfied that such obstacles to integration would be “very significant” with the meaning of Appendix PL of the Immigration Rules and, as such, outweigh what would otherwise be the strong public interest in maintaining immigration controls by removing the appellant from the United Kingdom. I accordingly find that there are exceptional circumstances that render the appellant’s removal unjustifiably harsh; or, to put it another way, a disproportionate interference with her right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
23. The best interests of the appellant’s four children - a primary rather than paramount consideration – would plainly be served by them remaining with their mother. Whilst the appellant’s eldest child is now aged 18 years, there is no bright line between childhood and adulthood. Given that that she remains dependent upon the appellant and has yet to form a household of her own, I am satisfied that she falls to be treated in the same way as her younger siblings.
Notice of Decision
The appeal is allowed on the ground that the appellant’s removal in consequence of the respondent’s decision would be –
(1) contrary to the obligations of the United Kingdom under the Refugee Convention, and
(2) unlawful under section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1988.

David Kelly Date: 7th June 2026

Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber