Assessing age of asylum seekers

After years of concerns being raised by campaigners working with asylum seekers, the Home Office has significantly revised its guidance on "Assessing Age", following a Court of Appeal finding that its policy regarding age disputes was unlawful.

Age disputes are a significant problem facing young migrants. Many children seeking protection in the UK are unable to show how old they are as they may lack the requisite documents. Judgments on age might be made by Home Office officials or social workers, but if detailed assessments are not carried out appropriately, children can spend years without access to education or appropriate support, or end up at risk in unsupervised accommodation with adults or in adult immigration detention centres with many cases going unchallenged. This case involved a young Eritrean who arrived in the UK in March 2014 and said he was 16. Immigration officers believed that he was significantly over 18 and he was held in immigration detention until September 2014, and again from January to March 2015. In September 2015 an assessment carried out by two independent social workers found his date of birth to be as claimed by him on arrival.