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The Home Office is routinely changing the birth dates of child asylum seekers to classify them as adults, according to experts who say the practice is now happening on an “appalling scale”.
As a result, many children are wrongly sent to the notorious Home Office site at Menston in Kent, experts warn, and detained in unsafe conditions for several weeks.
The Refugee Council said interviews with 16 children released from Manston revealed that some boys who had identity documents stating they were children had the Home Office change their birth dates to make them over 18.
One child interviewed in a London hotel last week said he had been assaulted by adults in Manchester, and others described fights and calls to the police.
Sonia Lambert, who works for the Refugee Council, said the boys were aged between 15 and 17, but Home Office staff did not accept their stated ages. One changed his date of birth by a year, placing him on the dividing line of 18. “I cried a lot but they still haven’t changed it,” said an Afghan boy.
Three of them showed officials at the Refugee Council’s age-conflict project images of ID documents or passports on their phones, which were ignored or discounted by the Home Office. Some of the boys said they did not understand why they were given new ages despite their protests.
Classifying unaccompanied child asylum seekers as adults meant that some were placed in Manston for more than 10 days at a time and some for more than 20 days.
Manston was evacuated last week following a series of controversies at the site, including overcrowding, allegations of drug dealing by guards, asylum seekers being left stranded in central London after being released from the center and outbreaks of infectious diseases such as diphtheria.
The Home Office said on Saturday that the latest death of an evacuee held at Manston may have been caused by diphtheria, a highly contagious infection that affects the skin, nose and throat.
Lambert, who was visiting the hotel where the children were interviewed, said: “The most striking thing for me was how young many of them looked. Some even had proof of their age, and showed us images of ID cards or passports, which appear to have been ignored or discounted by Home Office staff.”
Of the 16 interviewed, eight said they were 16 years old, six said they were 17 years old, and two were 15 years old. Three had documents to prove their age, but they were ignored.
A 15-year-old from Iran had an image of his passport and ID card, but said Home Office officials were “not interested”. He claimed that they told him that it didn’t matter if he gave him a new date of birth as he would get a chance to correct it later. The boy went to spend 24 days in Manston.
A boy from Syria said: “I’ve never been so scared as I was in Manston.” Another, from Sudan, added: “It’s the worst place I’ve ever been.”
Rena Mann, executive director of services at the Refugee Council, said: “This is an abuse of power by the government. These kids are very vulnerable and have already been through it.
“Our staff are seeing many young people aged 15, 16 and 17 who have been wrongly treated as adults by Home Office staff. It is only when we get involved that these children are identified as such and taken into local authority care.” Once classified as adults, boys are at risk of being “dispersed” to adult accommodation, usually hotels, across the UK.
The Refugee Council has worked with 92 young people in a single hotel since early September, successfully managing to take care of all of them. Mann added that the government has not published data that presents a clear picture of the number of children affected.
“As the government works to tackle the huge challenges in the asylum system, the treatment and welfare of children must be prioritized.”
The Home Office has been contacted for comment.
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