HOME OFFICE AGE ERRORS PUT HUNDREDS OF ASYLUM-SEEKING CHILDREN ‘AT RISK OF ABUSE’

The Home Office wrongly placed hundreds of lone child asylum seekers in adult asylum accommodation such as hotels last year before they were later found to be under 18, The i Paper can reveal.

At least 678 child asylum seekers were initially classed as adults before being referred to councils and then found to be children, according to data collected from local authorities under Freedom of Information (FOI) laws.

This accounted for more than half (56 per cent) of total referrals sent for age reassessment.

Lone children would have been forced to share rooms with adult strangers, potentially leaving them open to abuse, according to the Helen Bamber Foundation, which obtained the data.

Reports of adult asylum seekers claiming to be children, in a bid to remain in the UK, and even attending schools have increased pressure on the Home Office to get tougher on age assessments amid the escalating Channel crisis.

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But the figures suggest that mistakes are also made in the other direction, leaving genuine children in vulnerable situations. Recent reports have highlighted incidents of violence and sexual assault against young people in asylum hotels.

The charity has particular concerns about the process for determining an asylum seekers’ age immediately after they arrive in the UK, for example after crossing the Channel in a small boat.

Often lone children arrive from countries like Afghanistan, Sudan and Eritrea without official identity documents either because they have never had them, or they have been destroyed, lost or stolen.

If someone arrives and claims they are a child, but this is not accepted initially, Border Force officials will come to a view on their age based on their “appearance and demeanour”.

At this point, they can be treated as a child, but with “disputed” age, and be referred to a local authority for a detailed social worker-led age assessment which draws on a number of techniques including interviews and the gathering of background information on family, medical and other history.

Alternatively they can be immediately treated as an adult if their “physical appearance and demeanour very strongly suggests they are significantly over 18”, at which point they can be moved straight into adult accommodation such as hotels or detention.

The FOI data shows that in 2024, 1,355 of asylum seekers in the latter cohort were later referred to local authorities, with 1,221 of their ages then being determined.

Of the cases where their age was determined, 678 (56 per cent) were found to have been misclassified as adults.

This could be an underestimate of the true scale of children being misclassified as adults, as only 90 local authorities – 79 in England and 11 in Scotland – responded to the FOI request, just under half of those asked.

It is a smaller figure than in 2022, when the data was last compiled, which showed that 867 children (63 per cent of total referrals to 70 authorities) were wrongly treated as children.

The data comes as small boat arrivals have reached their highest ever level for the first six months of the year, and are set to soar as the summer progresses.

The UK and France are meeting for a crunch summit this week, which is expected to include a new plan to deal with the crossings.

‘They said I was too tall, my feet were too big’

Esther, an asylum seeker who came to the UK and claimed she was wrongly assessed as an adult, said it was still affecting her life.

The woman, who escaped torture in the Congo, according to the charity Freedom From Torture, arrived in the UK with no documents.

Social services did not believe that she was still a teenager, and her age assessment concluded she was seven years older than she stated. She was given identity documents with her assigned age, the charity said.

“They said I was too tall, my feet were too big,” Esther said.

“My skin looked too old. And I knew how to cook. So they told me I was lying. They decided I was older.”

Freedom from Torture said Esther was refused housing and barred from going to college, something she wanted.

“I see people my age, they are working, they are going to university,” Esther said.

“I want to learn too. I want to boost myself.”

Even now when people ask her how old she is, she says she still feels anxious.

“Everywhere I go, they ask me straight away, ‘How old are you’? I’m confused. What do I need to say? I have to say the age in my new ID. It’s become a complex question, and it just brings me back. I can’t keep explaining what has happened to me.”

Esther is now part of Freedom from Torture’s youth activism group Young Outspoken Survivors, who have been to Parliament and given talks at universities to raise awareness.

The Helen Bamber Foundation is pushing for changes to the Government’s flagship borders legislation this week, including the scrapping of the use of X-rays to determine age, and an overhaul of Home Office border policy to assert that those who say they are children are treated as such unless there are exceptional circumstance.

There are also calls for a legal route for child asylum seekers to be reunited with family in the UK, alongside a dedicated resettlement scheme for children and families with children, which is unrestricted by geography or nationality, unlike previous programmes for Syrians, Afghans and Ukrainians.

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Data from the Humans for Rights Network also claims there have been 26 cases of children being wrongly treated as adults when charged with immigration offences created by the Conservatives in 2022, with at least 16 individuals spending time in adult jails.

Kamena Dorling, director of policy at Helen Bamber Foundation, said: “Every year hundreds of unaccompanied children seeking protection are incorrectly determined by border officials to be adults based on a cursory visual assessment.

“Not only are they then forced to share rooms with strangers in adult asylum accommodation, many are now also ending up in adult prisons after being prosecuted for illegal arrival.

“What we need is urgent change to the flawed policy of officials assessing age on sight,” she added.

The Home Office was contacted for comment.

2025-07-08T17:30:42Z