‘Particular social group’ in historical focus: cultural knowledge in witchcraft-based asylum cases

This is the first in what we hope will be a series of posts drawing on a recent forum on African refugee history published in the African Studies Review. You can read an open access summary of the introduction here: refugee debates, it suggests, have an African history problem.

In 2010, Ade Uwaifo,* a Nigerian woman living in the UK, sought refugee status on the grounds that her abusive husband (from whom she was estranged) had publicly and vociferously labeled her a witch. He had informed their family, neighbours, and the congregation where he was a pastor in their home state of Edo that she was a witch, thus spreading anti-witchcraft animus against her. He threatened to take her back to Nigeria and see her killed because of her witchcraft. By accusing her of witchcraft, Uwaifo’s husband asserted that she had been mobilizing malevolent supernatural power to harm the persons, property, psyches, and kin of others in their community. At the same time, her husband’s accusations were a form of violence against Uwaifo; harmful speech acts that could easily result in her lynching.

Ade Uwaifo’s asylum narrative is far from unusual. Since the early 2000s, increasing numbers of African asylum seekers coming from across the continent to the global north have made witchcraft-based asylum claims. They argue that being accused of witchcraft renders them ‘members of a particular social group’ (PSG) and thus eligible for refugee protection under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Uwaifo’s claim reflects a recent trend in refugee status determination (RSD): the broadening of PSG to include culture-based persecution. Witchcraft-based claims are possible because of the 1996 landmark appeal In re Fauziya Kasinga wherein a young Togolese woman successfully claimed asylum in the United States on the ground that if she were returned to Togo, she would be subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM), a form of culture-based persecution. Kasinga’s attorney argued that belonging to a community where FGM was necessarily practiced on nearly all women, rendered women from the community members of a particular social group subject to persecution. Kasinga and subsequent FGM cases set the stage for future PSG claims rooted in culture. 

Cases like Uwaifo provide a fruitful terrain to consider how cultural understandings or misunderstandings complicate the process of determining who counts as a refugee. Uwaifo reflects a second trend in RSD: receiving states’ increasing preference since the mid-1980s for individual determinations over prima facie designations. In an individual hearing, the asylum seeker’s narrative is the foundation of the case. Ordinarily, claimants must convince adjudicators that if they are returned to their country of origin, they will be subjected to persecution. Asylum seekers making witchcraft claims, however, must convince adjudicators not only that they will be persecuted, but also that the kind of persecution they fear exists; that witchcraft is a social fact and a lived reality in their home countries. In turn, asylum authorities, who have little to no familiarity with witchcraft and who are culturally predisposed to discount claims about it, face a central dilemma: how to assess claims about a phenomenon that they do not recognize as ‘real’ while at the same acknowledging that the majority of people in an asylum seeker’s country of origin embrace its reality? Cases like Uwaifo call into question the usefulness of expanding the interpretation of PSG along cultural lines if adjudicators are ill-equipped to assess culture-based persecution. 

Looking closely at the ‘facts of the case’ in Uwaifo underscores how the ‘culture of disbelief’ and the absence of cultural knowledge together shape the adjudication of witchcraft-based claims. Uwaifo had arrived in the UK with her husband, who was on a student visa. She herself was well-educated, having trained as a maths teacher. When she lodged her claim in 2010, Uwaifo had been estranged from her husband for some time, raising their two small children alone. At her initial interview with the Home Office, Uwaifo explained that her husband abused her physically and psychologically, culminating in his witchcraft accusations and threats to take her to Nigeria to have her murdered. Uwaifo’s husband had told their family and neighbours and his congregants that she was a witch. Hunting witches was common in their home state, she explained, and the reach of her husband’s church extensive. Her claim was rejected; the decision record does not indicate on what grounds. 

Uwaifo appealed to First-Tier Tribunal – responsible for hearing first-instance appeals – and reiterated her story. The judge relied on a COI report produced by the Home Office’s Country of Origin Information Service. It described domestic violence in Nigeria as widespread, socially acceptable, and a matter in which the police did not normally intervene. This country evidence underscored how Uwaifo’s experience of domestic abuse was not atypical. The report also characterised beliefs in ‘ghosts, juju, charms, and witchcraft’ as ‘prevalent and widespread,’ including among Christians. It explained, ‘the fear of being the victim of other people’s manipulation of supernatural forces is very real.’ Here country information suggested both that Uwaifo’s experience of being accused of witchcraft would not be uncommon in Nigeria and how such accusations could be leveled by her husband, a pastor, and supported by their close associates and congregation. The tribunal decided that because of the accusations, there was no place in Nigeria where Uwaifo could live safely and openly. Uwaifo was granted refugee status.

But it is not only asylum seekers who have a right of appeal in the UK system. The Home Office can also appeal a decision to the Upper Tribunal, a higher court. It exercised this option in Uwaifo. The Home Office’s representative challenged the lower court’s reading of the country information. He argued that the evidence did not indicate that Uwaifo would be at risk throughout Nigeria. The judge of the Upper Tribunal concurred. He went so far as to assert that if Uwaifo were sent back to Nigeria she would be ‘better off than many women in Nigeria.’ Uwaifo’s refugee status was revoked.

Taking the last avenue of appeal available to her, Uwaifo turned to the Court of Appeal, which concurred with the First-Tier Tribunal’s reading of the country information. Uwaifo did face inescapable persecution in Nigeria due to her husband’s witchcraft accusations. Uwaifo was once more, and finally, a refugee in the eyes of the law.

Uwaifo’s journey through the UK asylum system underscores the extent to which determining who counts as a refugee depends on the knowledge and interpretation of individual adjudicators. This highly subjective decision-making is even more problematic in witchcraft cases, where the persecution at the heart of the claim to protection is so outside the experience of individual adjudicators. Cases like Uwaifo suggest that giving greater weight and a more expansive role to expert evidence in asylum adjudication would aid significantly in filling gaps in immigration authorities’ knowledge and understanding. As the bounds of the ‘particular social group’ category continue to expand along cultural lines, so too must the resources for effectively assimilating asylum seekers’ culture-based claims.

 * UK asylum appeals are anonymized. ‘Ade Uwaifo’ is a pseudonym.

The banner image shows the grand interior of the Royal Courts of Justice, London—a large, high, light-filled space resembling the nave of a cathedral, with a number of people in groups or individually moving about the elaborately tiled floor. Source: Wikimedia Commons (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license).