age assessment of minors
On 22 December 2023, the Australian Federal Court signed off on a settlement for $27.5 million in compensation for a group of then children wrongly assessed and prosecuted as adults in relation to people-smuggling charges. At the time, their age was assessed by interpreting wrist x-rays, a practice considered flawed by medical professionals. However, in January 2024, the United Kingdom (UK) put forward new legislation to use x-rays as part of their age determination process of asylum seekers. This Explainer sets out the age assessment process for asylum seekers with no proof of age.
Why do asylum seekers need an age assessment?
Many asylum seekers arrive without identity documentation. This could be for a number of reasons, including leaving their homes in a hurry without their documents, not having citizenship in their country of birth, or losing or destroying the documents on the journey. Processing an asylum claim requires a date of birth for the applicant, and it is important the age determination is as accurate as possible to avoid mistakenly placing minors in camps with adults.
How is age assessed?
When Australian Immigration officials triage asylum seekers, they will consider the applicant’s physical appearance and demeanour. If doubts are raised about the age of the asylum seeker in this process, two trained age determination officers will interview the asylum seeker in the presence of an independent observer. They will ask the asylum seeker questions about their background, family, education, journey and life chronology, while considering whether the story adds up. They will also consider the demeanour of the asylum seeker and whether their behaviour matches that of their claimed age. The two age determination officers will come to independent conclusions about whether the asylum seeker is likely to be an adult or likely to be a minor. If they have differing opinions, the asylum seeker will be considered likely a minor. Due to the unreliability of medical testing, no tests or x-rays are carried out.
Prior to the beginning of ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ in 2013, the government detained suspected Indonesian people-smugglers who arrived on boats with asylum seekers, many of whom claimed to be children. At the time, government policy dictated that any minors intercepted would be sent home immediately. During the investigations of suspected people-smugglers, investigators relied on wrist x-ray analysis to assess their age, despite contrary advice from medical professionals that the practice was not reliable and lacked scientific validity. Australia’s legislation permits the use of x-ray assessment to determine a person’s age if there is no other proof, however, investigators were using the x-ray assessment as the primary methodology to determine age.
What if the assessed age is inaccurate?
If it is found that an asylum seeker is incorrectly detained in an adult camp as a minor, the minor will be separated from the adults and housed with other unaccompanied minors (UAMs). A UAM is a person under the age of 18 who is not in the care of a parent or relative above the age of 21.
In Australia, minors have been wrongly assessed and prosecuted as adults in relation to people-smuggling charges. The Human Right’s Commission reported that 118 individuals claimed to be children and had x-rays taken to verify their age, but many were charged and convicted with people-smuggling offences and held in adult detention facilities. In 2022, six of the Indonesian minors who were incarcerated successfully overturned their criminal convictions. The court found the minors convicted of adult people smuggling offences were held in adult jails for an average of 28.8 months before being released. Over ten years after the minors were convicted, the government agreed to settle the case for $27.5 million. The Australian Federal Police said in a statement in 2022 that it no longer used wrist x-rays for age determination.
In January 2024, it was reported that the UK Home Office incorrectly assessed hundreds of minors seeking asylum using a short visual assessment shortly after their arrival. As a result of these flawed assessments, 1,300 children over an 18 month period had been placed in unsupervised adult accommodation and adult immigration detention. To combat these issues of incorrect assessments, the UK put forward new legislation to use X-rays of teeth and wrist bones as part of their age assessment process, similar those practices in Australia that led to the wrongful determination of the age of Indonesian people-smugglers.
Medical professionals have advocated against this use of x-rays on the basis that they are widely inaccurate and can expose individuals to harmful radiation. It is widely agreed that age assessment ‘requires a combination of narrative history, review of any available documentation, physical examination, and review of growth, pubertal status, development, education and peer relationships’.
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Last updated May 2024