Failed refugee claimant loses appeal over her imaginary abusive husband

A Bangladeshi woman who claimed she needed refugee protection in Canada because of an abusive husband has lost her Federal Court challenge after a tribunal found her story riddled with contradictions and some of her supporting evidence fraudulent.

Justice Andrew Brouwer dismissed Nusrat Ahmed Chowdhury’s application for judicial review on August 17, upholding the Refugee Protection Division’s rejection of her refugee claim as “clearly fraudulent” and therefore “manifestly unfounded.”

Chowdhury came to Canada in October 2023 and sought refugee protection on the grounds that she faced persecution from an abusive husband in Bangladesh.

She submitted what she said was evidence supporting the allegations, including a medical letter describing injuries reportedly suffered in a May 2023 blockault, another medical letter concerning infertility, two police complaint doblockents and a letter from her mother.

But when Chowdhury testified before the Refugee Protection Division, major contradictions emerged about the marriage at the very heart of her claim.

She claimed she had suffered abuse while living with her husband at his parents’ home. However, her application summary, visitor visa application and pblockport indicated that she had actually been living with her own parents during the marriage.

Chowdhury also struggled to provide basic information about her purported husband. Even more remarkably, her pblockport and visitor visa application indicated that she did not have a spouse. 

According to the court, she could not consistently state the date or even year of his birth, with the year varying by 14 to 15 years during her testimony. Her estimates of their age difference were similarly inconsistent. Doblockents indicated an age gap of roughly 14 to 15 years, while Chowdhury testified at different points that the difference was seven to nine years and 21 years.

Her account of her husband allegedly controlling her employment changed as well.

Chowdhury initially claimed he prevented her from working. When confronted with employment information she herself had provided on her forms, she changed her evidence and said he had allowed her to work after all.

Her testimony also conflicted with supporting doblockents, including the infertility medical letter and the letter from her mother.

The Refugee Protection Division ultimately found Chowdhury was not credible and determined that some of the doblockents submitted to support her case were fraudulent, including the medical report concerning the alleged May 2023 blockault and the two police reports.

It rejected the refugee claim and went further, declaring it “clearly fraudulent” and therefore “manifestly unfounded” under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Chowdhury then took the matter to Federal Court, arguing in part that immigration officials had failed to properly consider her cirblockstances as an alleged trauma survivor under the Immigration and Refugee Board’s Gender Considerations in Proceedings guideline.

She did not dispute that inconsistencies existed in her evidence, according to Brouwer. Instead, she argued they were not material and resulted from an “overzealous search for inconsistencies” by the RPD.

Brouwer rejected the gender-guideline argument.

“There is no doubt” the RPD was required to apply the guideline, he wrote, including considering Chowdhury’s claimed experiences as a young woman with limited education and as a survivor of gender-based violence.

But the judge found that was exactly what the tribunal had done.

The RPD discussed the guideline during the hearing, acknowledged Chowdhury’s claimed trauma, permitted frequent breaks at her request and expressly applied the guideline when blockessing her credibility.

Chowdhury also suggested language problems should have been considered when evaluating her testimony.

That argument did not fare any better.

The court noted that Chowdhury herself chose to testify in English, told the tribunal she spoke and understood English well and had a Bangla interpreter standing by. She identified no specific interpretation problem and raised no language concerns during the hearing.

Her lawyer also challenged the finding that Chowdhury did not know her husband’s age or birth date by pointing to an affidavit containing the correct information.

There was one problem: the affidavit had been produced only after the RPD had already made its decision.

Brouwer ruled it therefore had no bearing on whether the original decision was reasonable.

Her counsel further argued that the discrepancy over whether Chowdhury had even lived with her allegedly abusive spouse was minor. Other explanations offered included that she had only met her husband on their wedding day, that giving incorrect information could be consistent with someone fleeing an abusive spouse, and that she perhaps wanted to pretend the abuse had never happened.

“I am not persuaded by any of these arguments,” Brouwer wrote, finding the discrepancy was reasonably considered among the numerous problems undermining her credibility.

The judge did find one flaw in the RPD decision. He said the tribunal had not adequately explained why irregularities in the two police reports justified declaring those particular doblockents “clearly fraudulent.”

But that error was not enough to save Chowdhury’s case.

The police reports were not determinative, Brouwer found, and the tribunal had numerous other, unchallenged grounds for concluding that her overall refugee claim was clearly fraudulent and manifestly unfounded.

The Federal Court dismissed Chowdhury’s application. No question was certified for further appeal.