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| Asylum-seeking children are being disbelieved – and classed as adults | Asylum-seeking children are being disbelieved – and classed as adults |
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| A report published today says that hundreds of vulnerable children have been put at risk because social workers and others have disbelieved them when they told the truth. | A report published today says that hundreds of vulnerable children have been put at risk because social workers and others have disbelieved them when they told the truth. |
| In the report by Coram Children's Legal Centre, social workers have been found to have wrongly classified hundreds of asylum-seeking children as adults. As a result, some of these children have been left homeless, denied the right to go to school, unlawfully locked up in adult detention centres and placed unsupervised in adult accommodation where they've been abused. | In the report by Coram Children's Legal Centre, social workers have been found to have wrongly classified hundreds of asylum-seeking children as adults. As a result, some of these children have been left homeless, denied the right to go to school, unlawfully locked up in adult detention centres and placed unsupervised in adult accommodation where they've been abused. |
| Social workers have a very difficult job to do and whenever an appalling child death hits the headlines implicating social services, one or two social workers are named and shamed, sometimes unfairly. While thankfully there have been no gruesome child deaths here, it is disturbing that some social workers are getting things wrong far too often. The report reveals that one London borough alone – Croydon – has paid out £1.2m in legal costs between 2010 and 2012 after social workers wrongly assessed children to be adults. The council is thought to have been involved in hundreds of legal challenges on disputed-age children. The Home Office has been guilty of this practice too and is still detaining children unlawfully in adult detention centres. According to the Refugee Council, 24 children were unlawfully detained as adults last year and nine in the first three months of this year. | Social workers have a very difficult job to do and whenever an appalling child death hits the headlines implicating social services, one or two social workers are named and shamed, sometimes unfairly. While thankfully there have been no gruesome child deaths here, it is disturbing that some social workers are getting things wrong far too often. The report reveals that one London borough alone – Croydon – has paid out £1.2m in legal costs between 2010 and 2012 after social workers wrongly assessed children to be adults. The council is thought to have been involved in hundreds of legal challenges on disputed-age children. The Home Office has been guilty of this practice too and is still detaining children unlawfully in adult detention centres. According to the Refugee Council, 24 children were unlawfully detained as adults last year and nine in the first three months of this year. |
| Classifying asylum-seeking children as adults saves councils money as they don't have an obligation to support them, and allows the Home Office to forcibly remove them from the UK. | Classifying asylum-seeking children as adults saves councils money as they don't have an obligation to support them, and allows the Home Office to forcibly remove them from the UK. |
| Taking a tough line against migrants is a vote winner for all parties and the Home Office is keen to flex its political muscles here. But social workers, tasked with protecting vulnerable children, should not be reinforcing this tough political stance. | Taking a tough line against migrants is a vote winner for all parties and the Home Office is keen to flex its political muscles here. But social workers, tasked with protecting vulnerable children, should not be reinforcing this tough political stance. |
| "The extent to which the UKBA culture of disbelief appears to have crossed over into social work is striking," the report states. | "The extent to which the UKBA culture of disbelief appears to have crossed over into social work is striking," the report states. |
| The importance of believing children has been emphasised recently by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, in relation to child sex abuse cases. He has warned that the pendulum has swung too far against children. Recent high-profile child abuse cases have showed that initially the child victims were not believed, at least in part because of their troubled backgrounds and lifestyles. For different reasons the odds are stacked against people believing asylum-seeking children too. It is disturbing to think that children who have fled conflict zones, suffered persecution and perhaps witnessed atrocities against their parents and other family members, arrive here all alone seeking protection and are turned away and told they are liars. One Nigerian girl who was trafficked to the UK as a domestic slave at the age of five was not believed when she finally escaped and told social workers she was 15. She was told she was lying and placed unsupervised in adult accommodation where she was sexually abused and became pregnant. Only after that was it accepted she had told the truth about her age all along. Another 15-year-old boy from Afghanistan was deprived of schooling for three years and placed in two adult detention centres where he was terrified and traumatised. Only after three years was he finally believed. | The importance of believing children has been emphasised recently by the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, in relation to child sex abuse cases. He has warned that the pendulum has swung too far against children. Recent high-profile child abuse cases have showed that initially the child victims were not believed, at least in part because of their troubled backgrounds and lifestyles. For different reasons the odds are stacked against people believing asylum-seeking children too. It is disturbing to think that children who have fled conflict zones, suffered persecution and perhaps witnessed atrocities against their parents and other family members, arrive here all alone seeking protection and are turned away and told they are liars. One Nigerian girl who was trafficked to the UK as a domestic slave at the age of five was not believed when she finally escaped and told social workers she was 15. She was told she was lying and placed unsupervised in adult accommodation where she was sexually abused and became pregnant. Only after that was it accepted she had told the truth about her age all along. Another 15-year-old boy from Afghanistan was deprived of schooling for three years and placed in two adult detention centres where he was terrified and traumatised. Only after three years was he finally believed. |
| Coram Children's Legal Centre is calling for national statutory guidance about these age assessments and a shift in emphasis so that children are believed unless there is a real reason not to accept what they say. | Coram Children's Legal Centre is calling for national statutory guidance about these age assessments and a shift in emphasis so that children are believed unless there is a real reason not to accept what they say. |
| The Home Office insists that the wellbeing of children is paramount and that they are working to improve the system. Croydon council acknowledges there are difficulties "exacerbated by the current legal framework". | The Home Office insists that the wellbeing of children is paramount and that they are working to improve the system. Croydon council acknowledges there are difficulties "exacerbated by the current legal framework". |
| Let's hope the rhetoric translates into real changes so that hundreds of children who have had the trauma they suffered in their home countries compounded by their treatment here can at last be dealt with fairly. | Let's hope the rhetoric translates into real changes so that hundreds of children who have had the trauma they suffered in their home countries compounded by their treatment here can at last be dealt with fairly. |