These are not mere statistics; they are children who have fled from situations most of us cannot begin to imagine, only to find themselves caught in a bewildering and often hostile asylum system upon arriving in the UK.
The prevailing narrative, suggesting that some asylum seekers are adults pretending to be children, is not only misleading but harmful. Our experiences paint a very different picture – one where young people are often misjudged as adults upon their arrival or subjected to humiliating age assessment processes. The repercussions of these practices on their safety and mental health are profound and distressing.
New legislation that allows the use of invasive scientific techniques such as scans and X-rays to determine a child’s age, will make this issue worse. The Illegal Migration Act introduced a troubling clause which corners a child into consenting to these degrading procedures, under the threat of being treated as an adult if they refuse.
Disturbingly, the implications for a child wrongly classified as an adult are severe. Placed in adult accommodation, they are exposed to heightened risks of going missing, being trafficked, and exploited. The stories we hear from these young people, including those as young as 15, underscore the urgent need for change. Many of these children, wrongfully treated as adults, end up going missing – a tragic outcome.
The potential implementation of the Safety of Rwanda Bill threatens to introduce yet more challenges. Young people misclassified as adults could face the dire prospect of being wrongly deported to Rwanda. The current legal framework, as set out in the Illegal Migration Act, means that challenges to age assessments cannot delay removal proceedings. A young person’s return from Rwanda, contingent upon a UK court verifying they are a child, would only occur after enduring significant harm and distress.
Despite government assurances to the contrary, the numbers suggest up to 485 children could have been wrongly removed to Rwanda under these policies. The impact of such a monumental error could be irreversible.
Right now, we need to remember that children coming to the UK are coming for safety, many will have been trafficked, and many others will be deeply traumatised. We need to inject some compassion into this debate, and our focus must remain on the children caught in this system – their rights, safety and futures are paramount. We must remember our responsibility to protect and support them, not as a matter of policy but because compassion and humanity should shape how we treat the most vulnerable among us.
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Mark Russell is chief executive of The Children’s Society.
