{"id":243962,"date":"2025-07-07T00:30:22","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T00:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/243962\/"},"modified":"2025-07-07T00:30:22","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T00:30:22","slug":"traumatised-german-woman-who-found-real-love-and-care-in-nz-allowed-to-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/243962\/","title":{"rendered":"Traumatised German woman who found ‘real love and care’ in NZ allowed to stay"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter of \"NZ<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Young<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Mongkol Chuewong\n<\/p>\n

A German woman with post-traumatic stress disorder found “real love and care” for the first time in New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Now she will be allowed to stay here, at least for now, after a tribunal blocked her possible deportation following the expiry of her visa.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old woman left Germany 10 years ago, arrived in New Zealand in 2020, and has been here unlawfully without a visa since September last year.<\/p>\n

Although she has qualifications in hospitality management and has been studying towards becoming a community support worker, her application to renew a work visa was turned down in August 2024.<\/p>\n

She has been liable for deportation since her visa ran out.<\/p>\n

In that time, she started a relationship with a New Zealand citizen.<\/p>\n

The Immigration and Protection Tribunal said that although they had been a couple for only five months, they had been friends for longer and were in a “genuine relationship”.<\/p>\n

“If the appellant cannot remain in New Zealand, this will likely result in the couple being separated,” according to a recent tribunal decision.<\/p>\n

“The tribunal accepts that the appellant’s deportation will cause significant difficulty and distress for her, as she will be deprived of her partner, who is currently her key support figure.”<\/p>\n

The woman’s name was redacted from the published version of the tribunal decision.<\/p>\n

The tribunal said it had received 20 letters of support in the woman’s favour.<\/p>\n

The decision said that the woman suffered from chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD) arising from things that happened to her in Germany.<\/p>\n

“The only connection she associates with her home country, Germany, is the past trauma she experienced there,” it said.<\/p>\n

No functional family relationships<\/p>\n

Although her immediate family remained in Germany, she had no functional family relationships there and no meaningful connections.<\/p>\n

“The appellant states that she is anxious and distressed at the possibility of returning to Germany.<\/p>\n

“She writes that without a family that cares, or friends, she would not survive there as she has no reason to live there.<\/p>\n

“She also fears reliving painful memories of her past,” the tribunal said.<\/p>\n

“The appellant writes that before arriving in New Zealand, she had never known ‘real love and care’.”<\/p>\n

It said that apart from her CPTSD, for which she is still receiving counselling, the woman had an acceptable standard of health and a clean record.<\/p>\n

It found there were “exceptional circumstances of a humanitarian nature” making it unjust or unduly harsh for the woman to be deported.<\/p>\n

The tribunal ordered that the woman be given a work visa for 12 months, which would allow her time to continue her therapy and work towards a partnership-based application for residence.<\/p>\n

– This story originally appeared in the<\/b> New Zealand Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ric Stevens, Open Justice reporter of Photo: Mongkol Chuewong A German woman with post-traumatic stress disorder found…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5310],"tags":[1816,9409,2000,299,1824,12,196,10975,10973,10974],"class_list":{"0":"post-243962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-germany","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114809131914199528","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}