CAT/C/59/D/644/2014
2.12 On 28 November 2014, the complainant appealed this decision before the Migration
Court of Appeal, claiming that the Migration Court had made an incorrect assessment of the
risk posed by Boko Haram and the Ebola health crisis. Boko Haram attacks had increased
in intensity at the time of the appeal, and the security situation for civilians in Nigeria had
been worsening for a year.
2.13 On 3 December 2014, the Migration Court of Appeal did not grant leave to appeal,
and the Migration Board’s order expulsing the complainant and her daughters from the
territory of the State party assumed legal force.
The complaint
3.1
The complainant claims that, by deporting her daughters and herself to Nigeria, the
State party would violate article 3 of the Convention, as her daughters would be at risk of
female genital mutilation in accordance with the wishes of her ex-husband, her ex-motherin-law and the local community in general.
3.2
Edo State, where the complainant comes from, has never prosecuted anyone for
performing female genital mutilation. If the complainant and her daughters are returned to
their country of origin, the complainant asserts that the Nigerian authorities will not provide
them with any protection, given that the police system is inefficient in female genital
mutilation cases. In this connection, the complainant points out that she never contacted the
Nigerian authorities because she never lived in Nigeria with her husband; that she had
informed the welfare social services in Italy about the problems with her husband, but they
did not help her and only suggested that she solve this family problem by reaching an
agreement with her husband. She claims that such agreement would mean putting her
children at risk of female genital mutilation. In addition, owing to the activities of armed
groups such as Boko Haram, violence and human rights violations have increased in
Nigeria. Since 2012, Boko Haram has killed more than 5,000 people, burned more than 300
schools and deprived more than 10,000 children of an education. If the complainant and her
daughters escape to another part of Nigeria in order to get away from her ex-husband, exmother-in-law and her own family, they would be in danger of being victims of this armed
group, in particular because of their Christian faith. 3
State party’s observations on admissibility and the merits
4.1
On 17 June 2015, the State party submitted its observations on admissibility and
merits. It maintains that the complaint is inadmissible on grounds of lack of victim status of
the complainant and her daughters and manifestly unfounded pursuant to article 22 (1) and
(2) of the Convention.
4.2
The State party informs the Committee that, during the examination of the
complainant’s request for asylum, the Swedish Migration Agency contacted the Italian
police in order to confirm whether the complainant and her daughters had resided in that
country. On 6 December 2012, the Italian authorities informed them that the complainant
was unknown in Italy and that no visa had been issued in her name. Since the complainant
could not be sent back to Italy under the Dublin regulation, the Migration Agency
proceeded to consider the case. However, on closer inspection of the document by the
Swedish Police later on, it was clear that the complainant’s date of birth had been
incorrectly stated in the first request. Considering that the mistake might have been the
3
4
The complainant refers to the United States Department of State’s Nigeria 2013 Human Rights Report;
Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Manskliga rattigheter i Nigeria 2010; Human Rights Watch
World Report 2014: Nigeria, available from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2014/countrychapters/nigeria; and Amnesty International Annual Report 2012, available from
https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/pol10/001/2012/en/.