KT & Anor v The Secretary of State for the Home Department

Facts

The lead appellant, KT, is a Namibian national of the Herero (Otiherero) tribe; the second appellant, NT, is her child, born in the UK. At the age of seven KT was sent to live with her father in a rural settlement after her mother remarried and her mother's new husband would not take another man's child. On arrival she was promised as a "wife" to her cousin, the head of the village on whom she and her father were financially dependent, and she was subjected to rape and physical violence throughout her childhood, complaints to her father being met with beatings. She bore a child at 18 which was taken from her, and was kept in domestic servitude. Plans were made for a formal marriage to the cousin in December 2021; her reports to the police in August 2021 led only to the cousin being informed, and to further beating and rape at gunpoint. She fled to Botswana, and her mother paid for her to fly to the UK, where she arrived and claimed asylum on 25 November 2021. The Competent Authority recognised her as a victim of trafficking on 29 October 2025. The Secretary of State refused the protection claims on 18 March 2025, and the appellants appealed to the First-tier Tribunal.