In a concerning revelation, child asylum seekers arriving in the United Kingdom are being forced to share hotel rooms with adults as the Home Office implements its new hotel “maximization” program, which aims to double the capacity of refugee hotels by placing two strangers in spaces that were previously single occupancy.
The Refugee Council has issued a stark warning, highlighting the dangers this poses to young refugees and raising concerns about frequent misclassifications of child asylum seekers as adults at the UK border.
Child Asylum Seekers are viral in UK
The Guardian conducted interviews with seven young asylum seekers in Yorkshire, all of whom reported telling border guards that they were 16 or 17 upon their arrival in the UK by small boat in August and September.
However, they were all incorrectly classified as adults by officials, with ages assigned between 22 and 26. The Refugee Council staff, who subsequently interviewed these child asylum seekers and verified their identity documents, believe that serious errors have been made.
One young asylum seeker shared his harrowing experience, stating that he was overwhelmed by the smells of petrol from the boat, drenched in salty water, cold, and exhausted when he arrived. Furthermore, he was provided with a French-Arabic interpreter instead of a Tigrinya-speaking one, hindering his ability to understand what was being said.
He expressed his discomfort in the adult hotel and revealed that he had felt suicidal, saying, “I’m sharing a room with a man who’s about 30. I feel lost. Sometimes I put my head under the bedding and cry. I miss my mum.”
A group of teenagers from Afghanistan also revealed that they had photographs of their Afghan identity papers, showing they were children, on their phones. However, they were either unable to show the documents at the border due to phone confiscation during the screening process or because their phones were damaged during their journey.
The current situation has unfolded amidst renewed political controversy over age assessments for adolescent migrants in the UK. Both the home secretary, Suella Braverman, and her predecessor, Priti Patel, have expressed their determination to prevent adults from posing as children when entering the country.
The Home Office’s approach to this challenge has faced criticism, with the introduction of “scientific assessments” such as X-rays and the creation of a National Age Assessment Board. However, proposals to use X-rays have been controversial, with concerns about their ethics and accuracy.
The Home Office acknowledges the complexity of this issue and states that they will treat a claimant as an adult “if their physical appearance and demeanor very strongly suggest that they are significantly over 18 years of age.”
The group of seven young people in Yorkshire does not exhibit significantly older appearances. They resemble typical individuals found in a sixth-form classroom, showcasing a range of behaviors and physical features. Some have even started shaving, while others still have a baby-faced appearance.
In recent years, the issue of adults pretending to be children has sparked debate in the political and media spheres. However, refugee charities have pointed out that there is little advantage to be gained by being classified as a child in terms of the likelihood of an asylum application being approved.
The methods used for age assessment have faced criticism from refugee charities and lawyers, with some instances of erroneous assessments.
Caroline Norman, a Refugee Council project manager, expressed her concerns about the growing number of children housed in adult hotels, stating, “These children are shockingly uncared for.” Kama Petruczenko, a senior policy analyst with the charity, highlighted “very serious safeguarding implications” resulting from the unprecedented numbers of child asylum seekers in adult hotels.
A Home Office spokesperson emphasized the need to remove incentives for adult asylum seekers to pretend to be children to remain in the UK. However, the Refugee Council reported that in 2021, 94% of cases initially classified as “certainly” adult asylum seekers by the Home Office were later found to be children.
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