The government is considering renewed plans to start repatriating 16- and 17-year-old Afghan children whose asylum applications have been refused.
As part of this, the Home Office is working with a project called the European Return Platform for Unaccompanied Minors (ERPUM), which "aims to find new methods for the return of unaccompanied minors who need to return home after receiving a final rejection of their asylum application".
But Syd Bolton, co-director of the Refugee Children’s Rights Project at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, said any move to return 16- and 17-year-olds to a conflict zone would break the law.
"We would be concerned about any programme to develop forcible returns for children, unless the government can demonstrate that their asylum decision-making processes meet the needs and the best interests of asylum-seeking children, from the beginning of the process all the way through to appeals," he said.
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