Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children and the Barrier of Age: How UK Age Assessment Practices and Policies Place Chronological Age Above the Rights of Asylum-Seeking Children

Recognition of age is integral to a child’s right to identity and private life. However, assessing age is not an exact science, and each method comes with a margin of error. In the UK, age assessments are also linked to a culture of disbelief surrounding asylum-seekers, raising concerns that UK practices may not uphold the rights of separated children. Drawing on a semi systematic literature review and seven qualitative interviews, this article examines how UK age assessment practices and policies compare with international human rights law standards. It finds that UK age assessment practices encompass visual assessments, psychosocial assessments, and a potential move towards scientific methods—and that these practices do not uphold international human rights law standards, in particular the principles of the best interests of the child and the benefit of the doubt. Furthermore, this article finds that, due to the prioritisation of chronological age over the needs and interests of asylum-seeking children, age assessments cannot be improved to reflect international human rights law better. Rather, only through the abolition of age assessments, and a move towards assessing needs over age, can the best interests of children and the benefit of the doubt be upheld. Future research on age assessments from a human rights perspective, especially following recent announcements regarding UK age assessments, ought to interrogate the need to determine chronological age considering the detrimental effects it has on asylum-seeking children.