Leeds: Child asylum seekers wrongly classed as adults - report
LIZ WEDDON/UNSPLASH (VIA LDRS)Thirty child asylum seekers were wrongly categorised as adults by the Home Office, according to a council report.
The children, all thought to have arrived in the UK without their parents, were placed in Leeds hotels with adult strangers.
The Home Office said assessing age was a "very difficult task".
The report will be considered by Leeds City Council's children and young people scrutiny board next week.
BENJAMIN ELLIOT/UNSPLASH (VIA LDRS)Unaccompanied children who arrive in the country are meant to be placed in the care of a local council.
The report states: "At the point of arrival, the Home Office, in their view, have assessed everyone as an 'adult' to ensure that when dispersed they are not moving unaccompanied children.
"However, upon arrival in Leeds the hotels' welfare officers are raising concerns when they suspect some individuals are children."
According to the report, in 2023 Children's Services received 35 referrals raising concerns about the assessed age of some individuals.
The report states that using the "available guidance" they deemed 30 out of 35 individuals to be under 18.
As a result, those individuals were removed from hotels and placed into the care of the local authority, the council said.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, five hotels in Leeds are being used to house asylum seekers, providing a total of 400 beds. The council report says the Home Office had recently decided to double that capacity.
The report adds: "Children's Services can therefore safely assume that there is likely to be a significant increase of unaccompanied children dispersed into those hotels who have been wrongly assessed as over 18 years of age."
'Hasty decision-making'
A Home Office spokesperson said: "It's vital that we remove incentives for adults to pretend to be children to remain in the UK - in the year ending June 2023, 49% of asylum applicants whose age was disputed were found to be adults.
"Given the very difficult task of assessing someone's age, we are also considering introducing scientific age assessment methods to widen the evidence available to decision-makers and improve their decisions."
A Refugee Council spokesperson said: "We support many children in the asylum system who are disbelieved about their age.
"As a result of hasty decision-making that sees the Home Office mistaking them for adults, hundreds of refugee children are at risk of abuse and neglect. No child should be denied the support they need or forced to live with adult strangers in asylum accommodation, where they are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse.
"These are children who simply want to start rebuilding their lives after the traumatic experiences they have been through."
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