MM v The Secretary of State for The Home Department

Facts

The appellant, MM, is a national of Kenya who applied for protection on 6 November 2024. The Secretary of State for the Home Department refused that application on 18 July 2025, and MM appealed to the First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber). It was accepted that MM is a lesbian, and the Secretary of State accepted that, at the date of decision, she was in a genuine relationship with her former partner, that relationship having since ended. MM's account was that she had been discovered being intimate with a classmate at school in 2019, beaten by teachers and publicly expelled, after which her parents kept her at home until she was permitted to move to Nairobi to work; that in 2022, when her parents sought to arrange a marriage for her, she told them she was a lesbian, and her father threatened to kill her. She claimed also to have been trafficked to Qatar and forced into domestic work before coming to the UK, a matter the Tribunal treated as immaterial. The Secretary of State disputed the account of discovery and family persecution, denied any general risk to lesbians in Kenya, and contended that MM could relocate to Nairobi or Nyanza. The appeal was heard at Hatton Cross on 8 September 2026, MM giving evidence as the sole witness.