However, her girlfriend refused to accept their relationship had ended.
And – after growing up and joining the Sri Lankan army – the ex-girlfriend in 2021 forced her way into the woman’s parents’ house at gunpoint, accompanied by three army officers.
When told the woman was not home, the ex-girlfriend, only identified as A.A., became angry.
“A.A. pointed a gun at the mother’s chest and threatened to kill her … and also threatened to kill the family dog,” the tribunal was told.
The woman had earlier migrated to New Zealand, partly to escape her ex-girlfriend and partly to study, before seeking asylum.
Her first application for asylum was rejected and so she appealed to the Immigration and Protection Tribunal for another hearing.
The tribunal presiding member Larissa Wakim said that in hearing the appeal she had to decide whether the woman’s story was credible and whether the woman faced genuine risk of harm if sent back to Sri Lanka.
Wakim heard how the woman, only identified as J.F., grew up in a rural Sri Lankan town in the 1990s where she met A.A. when they were 11 years old.
The woman said she had been a bookworm, timid and never talked back.
A.A., on the other hand, was “confident, athletic and decisive”. A.A. was “always happy to argue” and could become angry and controlling over who J.F. was friends with.
Their relationship became intimate at 16, with J.F. later going on to study computer programming and A.A. joining the Sri Lankan army.
They continued their relationship but kept it a secret because they worried it was considered culturally unacceptable in their community.
But in 2017, J.F.’s mum saw them kissing.
Her mum also gave evidence to the tribunal and recounted how at that moment “she felt disgusted, sad, betrayed and worried because, in Sri Lanka, it was unacceptable and illegal to have lesbian relationships”.
The parents forced J.F. to stop seeing A.A., made her change her phone number and destroyed most of the photos of the girls together.
The parents next decided to “resolve the problem” by marrying their daughter to a man her father knew through his work, the mum told the tribunal.
But soon after A.A. drove to the family’s home and demanded J.F. be given to her, the mum said.
“A.A. behaved like a man, scolding the parents, and threatening to kill them and [J.F.],” the mum said.
A.A. then began to do slow drive-bys of the family home in her army vehicle.
Everyone became afraid of her, with J.F.’s parents moving to a rental house in a new town in 2018 to try to get away, but A.A. quickly tracked them down.
In 2021, the family celebrated the birthday of J.F’s brother at the rental home.
But A.A. showed up in her army vehicle with three army friends, thinking J.F. would be there.
Demanding to be let in, A.A. said she would shoot the home’s gate down if it wasn’t opened.
Once inside, she searched everywhere but couldn’t find J.F. Becoming enraged she threatened to shoot J.F. and her mum.
J.F.’s mum told the tribunal the moment was terrifying and that she still takes fright at the memory of it.
J.F. wasn’t there at the time because she had migrated to New Zealand in 2018 at the suggestion of the family of her husband, identified as B.B.
She said she had endured abuse and non-consensual sex as part of the marriage and agreed to go ahead to New Zealand on a student visa.
However, B.B. was not able to secure a visa to New Zealand to follow her.
By 2021, B.B. sought a divorce. He had also been hiding from A.A. and said that living apart and being unable to go to New Zealand had become too much.
In New Zealand, J.F. had troubles with her studies and dropped out. However, she now worked six days a week in a retail job.
She told the tribunal she sent one-quarter of her week’s earnings to help support her family because her dad had not had substantive work since 2017.
A medical expert also presented evidence that J.F. had bad anxiety and a major depressive disorder because of her circumstances.
J.F.’s mum also expressed fears for her daughter in Sri Lanka saying she would be vulnerable without a husband and may find it hard to get a job.
Ultimately, Wakim decided J.F.’s account had been credible, due to her giving consistent and straightforward evidence ever since first making her refugee claim.
Her story was also corroborated by other people and a medical expert, Wakim said.
Wakim believed A.A. posed a threat to J.F. and that the Sri Lankan police had already been shown as unwilling to protect J.F.’s family.
She also believed J.F. was at real risk of being forced into another arranged marriage with a man due to her personality of being unable to resist her parents' demands.
And once in such a relationship she would be more vulnerable to abuse such as non-consensual sex, Wakim said.
She said J.F. had a right not to be forced to conceal her bisexuality or be forced into refraining from having intimate relationships to avoid persecution.
The tribunal consequently found J.F. is a refugee and entitled to protection in New Zealand.
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