How hard is it to use the provided method for those who are obviously children (pre-pubescent) or younger adolescents, while reserving the more intrusive methods for those cases where there is some doubt.
In a similar vein, it should not fall on local authorities to fund this process. There should be a pot funded by central government which supports those LAs’ engaging in the care and welfare of immigrants, including such extras as age verification.
]]>There are numerous genuine unaccompanied minors having to share accomodation with adults claiming to be children, where those adults were either bullying, bossing children around and very controlling, so the existing reception care for those who are genuinely UASC is not safe either.
In another case, an adult had been treated as a child and accommodated with other children and it was only discovered that he was an adult when he was admitted to a Paediatric ward for renal surgery. The surgeon reached the conclusion his patient was an adult as all of the surgical appliances had to be ordered from adult supplies. Meanwhile the man had been an in-patient on a Paediatric unit, placing all children in that ward at risk. Where was the safety for other children? I recall a number of occasions where minors and/or friends of unaccompanied minors or residential SW staff complained about other ‘alleged minors’ bullying and bossy behaviour towards genuine minors. Flawed age assessments of adults does not safeguard genuine asylum seeking minors.
At one point in Kent the hundreds of people arriving daily to claim asylum as minors meant it was impossible to find any Foster care placements for British children as virtually all Kent Foster placements had been exhausted. Kent was provided with very little in terms of resources to cope with the problem. The situation only improved when government measures were brought in for other LAs to accept and accommodate UASC from Kent and share their resources.
I accept that the reasons for coming to the UK are complex. However a major factor is that the UK is very generous in its care and benefits packages specifically to unaccompanied minors. The economic factors cannot be ignored. The support to adult asylum seekers needs to be improved so that asylum seekers do not need to pose as children to get the same services and rights.
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