In this opinion piece, Professor Andrew Rowland and Refugee Council CEO Enver Solomon explore the latest development in the UK Government’s hostile immigration policy: the use of so-called scientific age assessment methods to estimate the age of children arriving in the UK.
A court case concerning a dubious assessment of a child refugee’s age made waves earlier this year, when media reports revealed that an article on shaving from Gillette had been used as supporting evidence to prove that the child, who had fled from Afghanistan, was actually an adult. The child was the victim of serious safeguarding failures because of this poor age assessment – highlighting just how important it is for these assessments to be conducted properly. Thankfully, the court overturned the decision, and the child is now being cared for.
Determining someone’s age is not an easy task. But when done right, it serves as an essential safeguard to ensure that children are placed in suitable settings. Our frontline teams working with unaccompanied children in the asylum system know all too well the consequences of placing them in adult asylum hotels, and the grave risks they face.
Our frontline teams working with unaccompanied children in the asylum system know all too well the consequences of placing them in adult asylum hotels, and the grave risks they face.
Trained social workers are much better equipped to make age assessments than Border Force officials, who often only have very brief encounters with young people, shortly after they disembark onto the shore or exit from lorries or other vehicles at the end of long, dangerous, and traumatising journeys. On such journeys, children may have been trafficked in an enclosed, sensory-depriving space sometimes no bigger than a domestic fridge. The current system allows officials to estimate people’s age based on quick visual assessments and to then send them onto either children or adult settings. Far too often, this results in children being made to go through an adult asylum system.
Sadly, things are about to get even worse.
The Home Office’s latest measures, announced in September, will allow the use of scientific age assessment methods to estimate the age of children arriving in the UK. This would subject them to medical procedures that leading paediatricians consider to be unnecessary, harmful and potentially traumatic – not to mention that they often produce inaccurate results. The measures were debated in the Lords recently, with Peers formally expressing their concerns through a regret motion.
These new scientific methods focus on assessments of children’s dental and skeletal development to determine their possible age. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and other leading medical and professional bodies have raised ethical concerns about using scientific methods for examinations that are not medically necessary and only serve immigration control and enforcement purposes. They would expose children to unnecessary stress, harmful medical examinations, and the risks associated with radiation exposure.
Worryingly, the new legal provisions would also automatically consider a person to be over 18 years old if they don’t consent to the use of scientific methods. Of course, the potential consequences of refusal, such as deportation, may make a child more likely to agree to a medical procedure unwillingly. Such consent, given under duress, is widely considered to be unethical and invalid. Unsurprisingly, the Children’s Commissioner has repeatedly questioned these harmful and unnecessary age assessment measures from a children’s rights perspective.
The Government’s own advisory committee concluded early this year that there is no method, scientific or social worker-led, that can predict age with precision. It recommended that scientific assessments should only consider whether a claimed age is possible – rather than trying to specify how old someone is.
It recommended that scientific assessments should only consider whether a claimed age is possible – rather than trying to specify how old someone is.
Despite repeated calls, the Government is refusing to publish data on the number of children they incorrectly assessed as adults and placed in adult accommodation, with no safeguards in place, before they were taken into care by local authorities. Estimates from the Refugee Council show that the number of children who are facing serious safeguarding consequences because of such mistakes is well into the hundreds each year. Every child we’ve worked with who has been incorrectly age assessed has been badly scarred by the experience. Jamal*, a 16-year-old from Afghanistan placed in an adult hotel, told us: “I live alone here, with adults. I don’t have money, I’m worried about the future, I don’t feel good at all.”
This latest development in the Government’s hostile and misguided immigration policy will see vulnerable children continue to suffer serious consequences. Legislators have a duty to uphold the highest child protection standards, regardless of how a child came to our shores. An integral part of protecting children seeking refuge and asylum must be to acknowledge that the scientific methods proposed by the Government are harmful, unnecessary and unethical.
Prof. Andrew Rowland is the Officer for Child Protection at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Enver Solomon is CEO of the Refugee Council.
