The Home Secretary has announced that the Home Office is establishing a new Scientific Advisory Committee to provide advice on ways of checking how old an asylum seeker is
This advice will help ensure asylum seeking adults posing as children do not get access to support they are not entitled to, and remove the safeguarding risks of adults being wrongly placed in children’s care system.
Home Secretary Priti Patel said:
Government reforms will bring the UK’s age checking policy in line with other countries. Scientific methods are used by most European countries, who primarily use X-ray scans, and sometimes CT scans and MRI imaging to view key parts of the body.
For example, Finland and Norway take radiographs to examine the development of teeth and the fusion of bones in the wrist. In both countries, two certified experts will carry out the age assessment and must jointly agree on the person’s age. In France, X-rays are taken to examine the fusion of the collar bone, alongside dental and wrist X-rays, while in Greece, dental X-rays are used alongside social worker assessments.
Professor Dame Sue Black has been appointed to chair the committee on an interim basis. Currently Pro-Vice Chancellor for Engagement at Lancaster University, Professor Dame Sue is one of the world’s leading forensic anthropologists and is the current President of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Before this, she spent 15 years as Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology at the University of Dundee. A permanent appointment will be made in due course.
The committee will comprise a range of expertise, including medical practitioners, academics, scientists and social workers.
Dame Sue Black said:
The committee will be looking at a range of scientific methods for estimating age, and will be considering their accuracy and reliability, as well as ethical and medical issues. They will report their findings directly to the Home Office Chief Scientific Adviser to support her in advising Ministers on appropriate scientific methods for age estimation.
Many of those arriving in the UK who claim to be children understandably do not have clear evidence, such as a passport, to prove their age.
This can result in some people trying to claim they are younger than they are, in order to receive asylum or refugee status in the UK.
This is a significant issue. In the 12 months up to September 2021, of the 1,696 resolved age dispute cases in which an individual’s claim to be a child is disputed, around two thirds were found to be adults.
Resolving such age disputes is currently very time consuming, challenging and expensive for local authorities and the Government. It also often relies primarily on interviews with social workers and, given it is not always combined with scientific evidence, can be subjective, often resulting in expensive legal challenges. These can cost councils hundreds of thousands of pounds and can take as long as three years to resolve.
Recent examples of where age assessment has gone wrong has resulted in adults being put into children’s schools, or children being treated as adults, in both cases putting children at risk of harm. For example, in one instance pupils raised alarm at an obviously mature adult joining their class. He was re-assessed to be 10 years older than his claimed age.
Other new measures on age assessment include: