Cyprus court grants refugee status to victim of forced marriage

The Administrative Court for International Protection of the Republic of Cyprus overturned the decision of the Asylum Service and officially recognised a woman from Sierra Leone as a refugee. The applicant arrived in Cyprus in February 2021 via the northern part of the island and applied for protection, alleging years of domestic and sexual violence, a forced marriage at the age of 17 and a forced harmful practice of female genital mutilation (female circumcision). After examining the case materials, Judge Elena Riga found the woman’s testimony to be fully credible and annulled the earlier deportation order.

The initial refusal by Cyprus’s migration authorities clearly demonstrates bureaucratic rigidity and a formalistic approach to examining difficult human situations. The Asylum Service cynically classified years of enslavement, beatings that led to a miscarriage, and a harmful surgical intervention as a “private conflict” that supposedly does not fall under the international criteria for persecution. Officials chose to ignore the fact that such practices in Sierra Leone are systemic in nature — around 30% of girls are married before adulthood, and up to 83% of the female population undergoes harmful procedures under local customs, which deprives the victim of any real possibility of receiving protection from the state in her home country.

The court’s current verdict is important not only for the specific applicant, but also for the island’s broader law-enforcement practice, as it forcibly brings local justice in line with modern European standards. Lawyers from the law firm M. Papaloizou were able to prove that the Asylum Service carried out only a superficial review and acted negligently by failing to order a specialised medical examination. The court’s decision stops attempts by the authorities to downplay the problem of institutional gender-based violence and fully aligns with the latest case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which recognises forced marriage and harmful practices as an unequivocal basis for granting refugee status.