Refugee Council finds 94% of Home Office decisions were incorrect in its concluded age-disputed cases in 2021
Two brief but consequential new reports were released last week by the Refugee Council and the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU) that outline increasing problems with incorrect age assessments for young asylum seekers.
The Refugee Council's 15-page report 'Identity Crisis: How the age dispute process puts refugee children at risk' received considerable media coverage. You can read it here.
The report's headline finding is that hundreds of asylum-seeking children are wrongly being judged to be adults as a result of hasty decisions taken by the Home Office.
In the report, the Refugee Council sets out the figures: "Over the period of 12 months (January to December 2021) our specialist project worked with 233 young people whose age had initially been determined by the Home Office as 'certainly' adult and whose subsequent professional local authority social work assessment had been completed. Only 14 of them were found to be adult."
Given that 94% of initial Home Office decisions were overturned in the concluded cases, the Refugee Council says this challenges the view put forward by the Government that many asylum seekers who claim to be children are not.
In over half of the Refugee Council's cases, the Home Office claimed the children were at least 25.
The Refugee Council points out that as the Government does not publish adequate or accurate statistics, the report's finding could be the tip of the iceberg.
The report explains: "The government does not produce statistics on how many social work age assessments are overturned following an initial decision, nor does it produce statistics on how many of those claiming to be a child are deemed adult and treated as adults. The government therefore does not know how its own policies and procedures are working, choosing instead to present a simplified picture – claiming that people are pretending to be children and using the same few examples to illustrate the problem. These young people are not separately counted by the Home Office so we don't know how often this happens and the government does not keep statistics on how many young people it treats as adults following a decision at the border, nor what happens to them."
Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, said the Government's selective use of statistics does not present a full picture of the position and is very misleading.
Wrong decisions lead to children being housed with adults, with no access to specialist support or help, and no access to education. The Refugee Council has serious concerns that the situation is causing long term harm to children.
In addition, the report notes that the Nationality and Borders Act 2022 brings more negative changes to the way age disputed young people are defined, the way social work assessments are conducted and who has the power to conduct them.
Enver Solomon said: "When dealing with children the highest level of safeguarding must apply. Yet every day, children are getting lost in an asylum system that is making snap, careless decisions about their age. We know from our own work that this has dreadful ramifications for children who simply want to be safe and are alone, with no one to protect them. We are very worried that children are going to be sent to Rwanda, which will have devastating consequences for young people who have already suffered so much. New reforms under the Nationality and Borders Act will not help children have their age correctly identified, but instead force more young people to go through potentially harmful and unreliable procedures."
In response to the report, ITV News quoted a Home Office spokesperson as saying: "Age assessments are challenging but vital. Children are at risk when asylum seeking adults claim to be children, or children are wrongly treated as adults. Our reforms through the Nationality and Borders Act aim to make assessments more consistent and robust by using scientific measures, and creating a new National Age Assessment Board. If there is doubt whether a claimant is an adult or child, they will be referred for a local authority assessment and will be treated as a child until a decision on their age is made."
Also last week, the Greater Manchester Immigration Aid Unit (GMIAU) released a brief 5-page report on the dangers of incorrect Home Office age assessments for children in the North West. The report can be downloaded here.
The report details how an increasing number of children are being referred to GMIAU in 2022, having been wrongly assessed as adults on arrival in the UK by the Home Office and dispersed across the country to contingency hotels or sometimes even to detention centres.
"We're hearing from support services, local authorities and from young people themselves, who are concerned about dangerously poor Home Office decision-making that is leaving children at risk," GMIAU said.
As with the Refugee Council's report, figures in GMIAU's report suggest problems are widespread.
The report notes: "Of the 15 referrals we received by June this year, 11 had their age wrongly changed by the Home Office to make them an adult. Over half of these children have now had their age accepted by their local authority and 4 of the remaining 5 continue to wait for an outcome. Nationwide, figures from 64 local authorities collected by the Helen Bamber Foundation show that in January to March 2022, 211 young people were referred to children's services after having been sent to adult accommodation or detention. Two thirds were found to actually be children - 150 children had been placed in adult accommodation or detention in only three months."
GMIAU says the situation is not acceptable.
New policies introduced in the Nationality and Borders Act will put children at even graver risk, the report adds.
One 17-year-old asylum seeker that GMIAU is acting for was served with a notice that he would be removed to Rwanda, as the Home Office deemed him to be 23. "His story, from the moment of his arrival in the UK, exemplifies the dangers of the Home Office's policy making and decision making. While we hope legal representation will mean Afran's removal notice is cancelled, the impact on the mental health of an already vulnerable child cannot be easily forgotten," GMIAU said.
Among the report's recommendations, GMIAU calls for an investigation into why hundreds of children are being wrongly treated as adults by the Home Office. The report also calls for an asylum system that is guided by the principle of affording children and young people the benefit of the doubt, rather than being based on suspicion and hostility.