MINNESOTA LAW — The Law School’s Immigration and Human Rights Clinic recently helped a Guinean woman who faced persecution in her native country because of her religious beliefs, women’s rights advocacy, and public health work win asylum in the United States. The woman, a devout Christian, traveled to various regions within the Muslim-majority nation evangelizing. She was often targeted by government, religious, and community leaders for her openly practicing her religion. Working for a number of years as a public health worker, educator, and advocate for the United Nations, she had also been targeted for her work to address the Ebola crisis during its outbreak. (Many in the country at that time feared health workers were spreading the disease in their efforts to contain it, and there were reported cases of violence against them.) Additionally, she was persecuted for advocating for women’s rights and against female genital mutilation (FGM). She herself was forced to undergo FGM at the age of 39. After fleeing Guinea in 2019, she had a difficult time in the United States, pushed from household to household and exploited for free labor. At one point, she was held captive and sexually abused over a six-week period by a man who had promised to help her.