22 September 2023: Guardian: Fear of X-ray age tests in UK ‘may force child asylum seekers to flee’
Human rights groups criticise introduction of X-rays or bone scans to determine ages of asylum seekers
The Home Office insists many adult asylum seekers are pretending to be children but recent freedom of information data from 70 local authorities obtained by charities suggests that two-thirds of children – 867 out of 1,386 – deemed to be adults by the Home Office were later confirmed to be children.
Children wrongly classified as adults could be placed alone in unsupervised accommodation alongside adults they do not know, or wrongly placed in adult immigration detention centres. Some children as young as 14 have been forced to share rooms with unrelated adults.