1. Given the pervasive influence of the Bondo societies in Sierra Leone, the inferior position of most women in that country and the relative lack of support provided by the community, a woman who has undergone FGM but who has opposed traditional practices is capable of being a member of a particular social group for the purposes of the Refugee Convention.
2. Although the appellant faces a specific risk in her home area of being forced to be a sowei and of being forced into marriage, in general members of the Bondo societies fall short of adopting a positively hostile or combatant attitude to non-adherents of Bondo principles and avoid targeting them. The treatment faced by the minority is not persecutory.
3. The Court of Appeal’s decision in AA (Uganda) v SSHD [2008] EWCA Civ 579 is not authority for a wider proposition that lone women cannot be returned to Uganda or, indeed, any other specific country. Nor is it support for the proposition that it is unduly harsh to expect lone women to relocate to the capital city of their country of origin or any other large urban centre. Rather, it is a re-affirmation, in line with AH (Sudan) that such relocation must be reasonable, in other words, that it must not have such consequences upon the individual as to be unduly harsh for her. If survival comes at a cost of destitution, beggary, crime or prostitution, then that is a price too high.
4. There is a significant migration to Freetown from rural areas. For migrants to Freetown, those with the ability to access support would face no risk. Such support mechanisms might include family or other connections, support mechanisms from other groups, such as the Bondo societies and support from a local mosque or church. There is however no compelling evidence that these support mechanisms are the sole means of eliminating the risk of destitution and its corollary of the risk of beggary, recourse to crime or prostitution.
[2008] UKAIT 00090
Bailii
England and Wales
Updated: 22 July 2021; Ref: scu.278545 br>