BLOG: Chronological age cannot be accurately determined by any existing method, either individually or in combination. However, UK national authorities have developed and implemented procedures to determine the age of child migrants, which has damaging effects on those children who are wrongly classified as adults. But what’s in… an age?
Blog post by Ingi Iusmen, Associate Professor at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Southampton.
Displaced children and the protection of their rights
Paraphrasing the famous line “What’s in a name?” from “Romeo and Juliet”, just as a name is an arbitrary label that fails to define a person’s true essence, similarly, age is not the best yardstick to determine the protection needs and safeguarding risks faced by a child or young person in an asylum or migration context. Yet, what we know for certain is that the type of protection and support one is entitled to – whether one is labelled as a “child” or as an “adult” – is age-related. In this case, everything is in an age. The protection of children’s rights is enshrined in international law and is recognised nationally in the UK. Recent international conflicts, political crises, violence, and wars have seen significant numbers of children on the move or displaced globally. This child migration tested in practice the provision of children’s rights for migrant or asylum-seeking children. Indeed, children are disproportionately represented among the displaced, comprising about 40% of global refugees despite being less than a third of the world’s population (UNICEF 2025). However, the reception of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC) by the host country is particularly challenging due to the “culture of suspicion and disbelief” (House of Lords 2016) regarding their asylum claims, including their “claimed age”, in case they miss documents to prove their chronological age.
(…) children are disproportionately represented among the displaced
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Age assessment(s) of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the UK
Over the last couple of years, thousands of UASC arriving in the UK have been wrongly assessed by national authorities as adults (RMCC 2025), via a process of “adultification”. Based on data collected by refugee charities, at least 1,300 child refugees were wrongly assessed as adults by the Home Office over an 18-month period spanning from January 2022 to June 2023 (Helen Bamber Foundation, Humans for Rights Network, and Refugee Council 2024). The age assessment conducted by the Home Office (the Home Department or Ministry of Interior in the Government) at point of entry into the UK is particularly flawed as it involves a short visual assessment of “appearance and demeanor”, and those age assessed are determined as adults if “appearance and demeanor very strongly suggest they are significantly over 18” (Home Office 2025). Most often, the outcome of this assessment is that children are determined as adults, which results in children being placed in adult accommodation and immigration detention, exposing them to significant risks, potential harm and mental health deterioration (Helen Bamber Foundation and Refugee Council 2024).
Over the last couple of years, thousands of UASC arriving in the UK have been wrongly assessed by national authorities as adults
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Another age assessment method is applied by local authorities, via social workers, who have the statutory duty (under the Children Act 1989) to safeguard, promote the welfare, and act in the best interests of looked-after children. Social workers at the local level determine the age of UASC via a more holistic age assessment method (Merton-compliant) that requires two trained social workers and involves detailed interviews considering the child’s background, experiences, country of origin etc., and must give the benefit of the doubt, following the principles from the R (B) v London Borough of Merton case law. Yet social work age assessment has also been criticised for failing to acknowledge how psychological trauma, culture, and personal development are expressed in childhood (HBF and Young Roots 2024) and for not upholding the best interests of the child (Ortiz 2019). More recently, a newly created age assessment institution – the National Age Assessment Board (NAAB) – also conducts age assessments referred to it by local authorities or the Home Office. The NAAB also uses the Merton-compliant age assessment method. Yet the NAAB is a Home Office-based body that includes social workers – employed by the Government – and which is perceived to politicise age assessment (BASW 2023).
The unreliable and inaccurate age assessments
All the above-mentioned authorities can wrongly determine UASC as adults, in which case the UASC can appeal the age assessment outcome to the Courts, where judges are the final adjudicators of the chronological age of child migrants. In brief, UASC’s age can be assessed multiple times by multiple authorities, with different outcomes, demonstrating that none of the existing methods can determine age accurately and reliably.
Indeed, experts agree that no method can accurately predict age (IAESAC 2022). However, given the inaccuracies in determining chronological age, why are the UASC not being believed by authorities regarding their “claimed age”? Why do authorities persevere in investing vital time, capacity and resources to engage in what has been labelled as “pseudoscience”? The main justification embraced by the authorities is their need to protect children’s services from adults who pose as children (usually labelled as “bogus children” or “age cheaters”). Indeed, as the Government described the scope of age assessment at the border:
“Age assessment is an important process to help prevent asylum-seeking adults posing as children as a way of accessing support they are not entitled to, and allow genuine children to access age-appropriate services”. (Home Office 2023)
Indeed, experts agree that no method can accurately predict age
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The assumption is that migrant adults pose as children due to the perception that entering the asylum system as children increases the likelihood of being granted refugee status. However, there are no official and reliable statistics on how many adults pose as children and how widespread this problem is. By conducting excessive age assessments and regularly misclassifying children as adults, the current practice of age determination denies UASC lacking age documentation the protection of children’s rights, enshrined in domestic legislation such as the Children Act 1989, from the outset. For instance, key children’s rights principles, such as “the best interests of the child” (Art. 3 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child-CRC) or “benefit of the doubt” (CRC Committee General Comment No. 24 2019)[1] are disregarded by the authorities when children are disbelieved regarding their claimed age.
The assumption is that migrant adults pose as children due to the perception that entering the asylum system as children increases the likelihood of being granted refugee status
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This is even more pernicious in cases where children come from very diverse cultural and social contexts where age is not registered: according to UNICEF (2024), 150 million children globally (2 in 10 children) under five remain unregistered and invisible to government systems. Thus, there are children who lack any documentation and knowledge about their age. Still, they are not believed when they reach Western countries and seek protection. Moreover, it is widely contended that “childhood” and “maturity” are socially and culturally constructed concepts (Biddle 2017), and the age determination process, as currently conducted in the West, often draws on Western conceptualisations of childhood and aging, which are not universally valid or applicable. Despite this, national authorities still treat age as an objective category that can be determined accurately through visual or non-visual methods.
National authorities still treat age as an objective category
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Age assessments as a means to control and deter immigration
What purpose does the age assessment of UASC serve then? Indeed, UASC must navigate different age determination processes that are often irrational and inconsistent (Sanchez Taylor & O’Connell Davidson 2022), which is problematic in itself. Moreover, these assessments yield divergent outcomes for the same individual, further compounding the damaging effects on individuals undergoing age assessments and the financial costs incurred by authorities. Age assessments put a strain on the authorities’ available resources, staff capacity and support services. Existing evidence clearly shows that age assessment has significant harmful effects for UASCs’ mental health and wellbeing if they are misclassified as adults (HBF and Young Roots 2024). Most importantly, UASC are being denied access to children’s services and the protection of their child rights, as they are entitled to, according to international and domestic law. Being denied their status as children and given the predominant role played by the Home Office in establishing migrant children’s age, age assessment has become a means to control and deter immigration (by the Home Office) at the expense of being treated as a social care and particularly children’s rights issue: currently, age assessment does not serve the interests of children and their access to rights.
Currently, age assessment does not serve the interests of children and their access to rights
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References
BASW – British Association for Social Workers (2023) “BASW Statement: National Age Assessment Board” https://basw.co.uk/sites/default/files/resources/naab_statement_-_march_2023.pdf
Biddle, S.K., (2017) “Social constructions of childhood: From not-yet-adults to people in their own right.” Anthós, 8(1): 3
CRC Committee General Comment No. 24 (2019) “Children’s rights in the child justice system”, CRC/C/GC/24, 18 September, https://docstore.ohchr.org/SelfServices/FilesHandler.ashx?enc=fCSeGin61jlq5MBrsBG8EVS0ldFgHLITNYMhQS9SwNRQPprNXndfx0pLnp%2BK78ax83m4IsEPFBDhgOUaDiyYBA%3D%3D
Helen Bamber Foundation, Humans for Rights Network, and Refugee Council (2024) “Forced Adulthood: The Home Office’s incorrect determination of age and how this leaves child refugees at risk”, January, https://www-media.refugeecouncil.org.uk/media/documents/Forced-Adulthood-joint-report-on-age-disputes-January-2024.pdf
HBF (Helen Bamber Foundation) and Young Roots (2024) “‘They made me feel like myself’. A joint Young Roots and Helen Bamber Foundation report on age disputes and supporting young people” https://helenbamber.org/sites/default/files/202405/%28singles%29%20YoungRoots%20age%20disputes%20report%20v3%20180424.pdf
Home Office (2023) “New Illegal Migration Act measures and age dispute assessment tests”, 12 September, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-illegal-migration-act-measures-and-age-dispute-assessment-tests
Home Office (2025) “Assessing age Version 12.0”, 19 December, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/694954b81a2e540ccd8a5481/Assessing_age.pdf
House of Lords (2016) “Children in crisis: unaccompanied migrant children in the EU”, HL Paper. Available from: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/34/34.pdf
IAESAC (Interim Age Estimation Science Advisory Committee) (2022) Biological evaluation methods to assist in assessing the age of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/methods-to-assess-the-age-of-unaccompaniedasylum-seeking-children/biological-evaluation-methods-to-assist-in-assessing-the-age-ofunaccompanied-asylum-seeking-children-accessible
Ortiz, E. (2019) “Age assessment of unaccompanied minors. Observations from an appropriate adult”, in Hayes, D., Nayak, S., Mort, L., Yeo, R., Farmer, N., Ang, J., Gupta, A., Boyles, J., Turner, A., Tolman, K. and Berry, H., Social work with refugees, asylum seekers and migrants: theory and skills for practice. Jessica Kingsley Publishers
RMCC (Refugee and Migrant Children Consortium) (2025) “Lost Childhoods: The consequences of flawed age assessments at the UK border”, https://helenbamber.org/sites/default/files/202503/RMCC%20Lost%20Childhoods%20March%202025_0.pdf
Sanchez Taylor, J., & O’Connell Davidson, J. (2022) “Missing, presumed trafficked: towards nonbinary understandings of ‘wayward’ youth in Jamaica.” Anti-Trafficking Review, 19, 9– 27
UNICEF (2024) “Birth registration steadily increases worldwide, but 150 million children still ‘invisible’”, https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/birth-registration-steadily-increases-worldwide-150-million-children-still-invisible
UNICEF (2025) “Close to 50 million children had been displaced due to conflict and violence globally by the end of 2024”, https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-migration-and-displacement/displacement/
[1] According to General Comment No. 24, under para.34: “an assessment of the child’s physical and psychological development, conducted by specialist pediatricians or other professionals skilled in evaluating different aspects of development. Such assessments should be carried out in a prompt, child- and gender-sensitive and culturally appropriate manner, including interviews of children and parents or caregivers in a language the child understands. States should refrain from using only medical methods based on, inter alia, bone and dental analysis, which is often inaccurate, due to wide margins of error, and can also be traumatic. The least invasive method of assessment should be applied. In the case of inconclusive evidence, the child or young person is to have the benefit of the doubt”.