UI2023003383

              On 18 th January 2020 the Appellant, whose date of birth is recorded as 11 th November 1979, made application for international protection as a refugee on the basis that she was an LGBT national of Botswana and the victim of domestic violence.

              On 14 th September 2022 a decision was made to refuse the application. Though there was an initial issue about whether the Appellant was entitled to citizenship in Zimbabwe the Respondent accepted that the Appellant was a national of Botswana and that members of the LGBT community there formed a particular social group within the meaning of the Refugee Convention.

              Because of what the Respondent found to be inconsistencies in the Appellant's evidence it was not accepted that:

(i)             the Appellant was forced into an arranged marriage with a man when she was just 16 years of age;

(ii)           even if she was married to this man or lived with him as husband or wife, she fled from him, he being violent and abusive, as she contended;