Hosted by www.ijjo.org

Chapter 6 | Detention of Unaccompanied or Separated Children
At a meeting 18 at the Children’s Legal Centre, it was
also reported that there had been three age disputed
children held at Yarls Wood Removal Centre in 2005.
By June 2003, the Refugee Legal Centre and the
Immigration Advisory Service 19 had become very
concerned about the particularly high number of
age disputed unaccompanied or separated children
arriving at Oakington Immigration Reception Centre.
They, therefore, asked the Refugee Council to collate
its data on referrals from 164 age disputed unaccompanied
or separated children between November 2002
and July 2003. This covered the period from November
2002, when the initial list of 10 nationalities considered
suitable for the Fast Track process by the Immigration
and Nationality Directorate was announced, to
July 2003, when an expansion of the list occurred.
The percentage of age disputes remained fairly constant:
the average percentage of the overall population
at Oakington who had been age disputed between
February 2003 to July 2003 was 4.5%.
Over that period, 58.5% of those age disputed
were from Afghanistan, India, Albania, and Kosovo.
More detailed statistics were then produced for the
period between May 2003 to July 2003. These showed
that most of the age disputed children had given their
ages as 15, 16,or 17 and that 40.4% of them were only
entitled to a non-suspensive appeal 20 and would be
removed if their asylum application was refused without
an in country right of appeal. The withdrawal of
asylum seekers’ right of appeal in the U.K. is particularly
significant in age disputed cases. It raises the
possibility that the Secretary of State for the Home
Department may be returning an unaccompanied
or separated child to his or her country of origin in
breach of the policy not to return children in the
absence of adequate care and reception arrangements 21
without any judicial oversight.
Until November 2003 Cambridgeshire County
Council had not instituted formal arrangements for
age assessments at Oakington Reception Centre. As
a result the process was often greatly delayed and
age disputed children’s asylum applications were
even on occasion determined (and refused) before
the age issue was addressed. In some cases this led
to age disputed children being removed from the
U.K. before the age dispute was resolved. However,
since November 2003, Cambridgeshire County
Council has undertaken to provide an age assessment
within seven days and the Immigration and
Nationality Directorate has undertaken to postpone
the asylum decision (though not the applicant’s
asylum interview) until the outcome of the age
assessment is known.
Once Cambridgeshire County Council were
assessing age on a regular basis it became easier to
estimate the percentage of unaccompanied or separated
children at Oakington who had been wrongly
assessed as adults by the Immigration Service or the
Asylum Screening Units. Between November 2003
and September 2004, 74 age disputed unaccompanied
or separated children were assessed by Cambridgeshire
County Council. Of them 35 or 47.3% were
found to be under 18. This trend continued between
October 2004 and December 2004 when 24 or 50%
of the age disputed unaccompanied or separated
children were assessed to be under 18 (19 or 39.6%
of these children were 16 or 17 years old and four or
8.3% were 14 or 15, and one child was assessed to be
under 14). In January and February 2005, 12 or 42.8%
of those assessed were found to be minors (10 or
35.7% were aged 16 or 17 and two or 7.1% were 14
or 15). This did mean that 50% were adults posing
as minors.
Between November 2003 and September 2004,
91.3% of age disputed unaccompanied or separated
children referred to Cambridgeshire County Council
were male and only 8.7% were female. A similar
gender disparity occurred between October 2004 and
December 2004, with 83.1% of the referrals being
male and only 16.9% being female and in January
Hosted by www.ijjo.org
69