Child asylum seekers who have recently arrived in the UK on small boats say they have been pressured by screening officials to say they are adults, the Guardian has been told.
In some cases, the children say they were told that if they said they were over 18 they could get out of the troubled Manston asylum processing site in Kent more quickly.
A recording of a 16-year-old Eritrean boy speaking to a guard in Manston on October 29 about the pressure he says he was put under to say he was older was given to the Guardian. The Refugee Council also provided information on three recent interviews conducted by its staff with Kurdish boys from Iraq and Iran who made the same claims. A fifth child made the same complaint to the NGO Humans for Rights Network.
The Home Office says the claims, made by the Guardian, are unfounded and that the Guardian has not provided “concrete evidence” to support the allegations.
Cell phones are confiscated from people arriving on small boats, so the children who made these claims did not have a chance to record their initial conversations with officials.
In the recording in Manston, the Eritrean boy can be heard speaking to a guard who questions him about his journey, his age and his arrival in the UK: “First they say, ‘you’re over 18,’ I say I’m not. If you say you’re under 18 you’ll be in trouble. They say three times: ‘if you say over 18, if you say 19 you’ll get out of this place’. Other friends also say ‘we’re 15, 16’ they say ‘you’re lying’”.
One of the three Kurdish boys interviewed by the Refugee Council staff said: “They interviewed me three times, they asked me all the time about my age. They told me that if you don’t accept that you are an adult, we won’t do anything for you… My age is my age, I will never change my age. This is my age, why should I lie?”
According to Refugee Council staff, the boys spoke of being pressured to say they were older and told to “change” their date of birth. They spoke of being held at Manston in inhumane conditions.
One boy said: “When we first arrived, I stayed in Dover. We were told that you need to change your date of birth to make you older. If you make your date of birth older, we will put you on the bus and you will go right away. Because I was struggling, I was very cold, I told them whatever you decide to put on me, they should do it, I just wanted to get out of it”.
Two recent reports by the Refugee Council and the Greater Manchester Immigration Support Unit found that children being misclassified as adults put them at risk of abuse and neglect. After detailed age assessments, the majority of those initially assessed as adults by the Home Office were found to be children.
Renae Mann, executive director of services at the Refugee Council, said: “This autumn, our staff have seen an overwhelming and unprecedented number of unaccompanied refugee children who are being incorrectly identified by immigration officers as adults. Recently we have supported more than 70 children in a single adult hotel Some children who were staying in Manston told us that officials pressured them to say they were adults with the promise of moving them into accommodation more quickly to to adults. This is extremely concerning and puts children’s safety at risk.”
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Maddie Harris of the Humans for Rights Network said: “It is in the Government’s interest to treat these children as adults as it gives them the opportunity to remove them from the UK. We have already been contacted by children treated as adults with letters indicating the Home Office’s intention to transfer them to Rwanda.We were also told by a recently arrived child that on arrival at Dover officials told him that if he did not say he was an adult they would detain him in Manston for a few weeks and that no one would help him.”
The Home Office said: “We have been unable to investigate these unfounded claims made to us by the Guardian as we have not been provided with any concrete evidence. We take allegations like this very seriously. The safeguarding and welfare of children only unaccompanied asylum seekers is our highest priority.
“Children are at risk when adults seeking asylum claim to be children or when children are mistakenly treated as adults. All those who claim to be unaccompanied children are assessed by officials. The suggestions that Border Force officials asked for to asylum seekers who lied about their age is baseless speculation.”