Social workers dealing with unaccompanied asylum seeking children are facing an increasingly hard job as a result of age disputes – but imagine how it feels for the child.
This thorny issue cropped up at Community Care’s conference this week on working together to improve services for asylum seeking children.
Dr Heaven Crawley, director of the Centre for Migration Policy Research at Swansea University, highlighted some messages from her research into the issue. But her most memorable points came from her direct quotes from the people she interviewed.
People like 15-year-old Lavdie from Albania who was one of the many young people from her country caught up in child trafficking.
Lavdie was very puzzled when UK immigration officers said she looked older than she claimed. For her it was obvious that she would, given all she had been through. As she put it:
“Every time I go to the mirror and say did I change too much? If you buy two t-shirts and use one every day and the other one you keep it, which one will look older?”
Dr Crawley’s research also makes clear how flimsy the evidence often is that officials base their decisions on – decisions that can lead to a young person being sent back to the country they fled from.
A chief immigration officer at the Croydon screening unit said:
“You talk to them…some of them have quite an attitude, which suggests they are an adult…. You can usually tell if they are a child if they make eye contact. …the sullen ones won’t talk to you. Especially if they are hiding something then they don’t trust you to look at them too much.”
So much for the idea that staff should give young people “the benefit of the doubt.”
There were some interesting quotes from social workers who are subject to pressure from above to over-estimate young people’s age.
“Even when things aren’t made explicit… managers make certain remarks…like when you are leaving to do an assessment there will be a jokey comment from a manager saying ‘make sure you come back from the assessment with a negative decision’. And they will roll their eyes if you come back with a positive one.”
Social worker
“Management are constantly bullying the staff. It means that there are high stress levels. There is a real culture of ‘no’. You are constantly being asked ‘why did you accept this person?’”
Social worker
“The ones where you assess them as 15 cause the most problems because then you get asked ‘are you sure they are not 16?’”
Social worker
But how can you ever be sure that someone is 15 and not 16?
Though the comments from social workers were revealing it is the remarks from the young people that will probably stay with those attending the conference the longest.
“The worst thing I can remember - they made me sit there and like a slave market other immigration officers were told to look at me and guess my age. I was like I’m going to be sold. One would say 24, another would say 21. I was told to stand up and sit down. Then they said you are over 18…. It was the worst point.”
Hassan, 16, from Iran
“All day long I was at social services, from 9.30 in the morning until 6pm. They were just saying to the boys collecting their cash ‘does she look 15 to you?’ … I had my ID card and the letter from the Home Office but they didn’t believe me. I just waited there all day without any food or water. They didn’t ask me how I was feeling. My solicitor called them but they slammed the phone down on her. I was very scared.”
Lavdie, 15, Albania
So even if the Home Office doesn’t dispute someone’s age, social services still might. What a nightmare for the child!
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