Dr. Pierpaolo Ianni (UCE Birmingham)
An Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Child (UASC) is a person who is or appears to be under the legal age of majority (18 in the UK), and on arrival in the UK is not accompanied by a parent, guardian, or other adult who by law or custom is responsible for him or her and who claims asylum. Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children that arrive in the UK are often fleeing from war, abuse or exploitation. In 2001, almost 3,500 unaccompanied asylum - seeking children arrived in the UK; these were mainly aged 16 or 17, were mostly male and the majority came from areas of conflict or where serious abuses of human rights occur, such as Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2002, there was a rise in unaccompanied children seeking asylum to 6,200, but by 2003 this figure had halved. However, by April, 2004, the figure had started to increase again (Home Office, 2004). The former downward trend might have been partly due to the fact that the Home Office may dispute the applicant’s age, and reclassify the child as an adult. Where age is in dispute, the policy of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate (IND) has been to treat the applicant as an adult if their appearance suggests that they are over 18 years of age and then to offer NASS support where appropriate, until age has been satisfactorily demonstrated. In cases where the relevant Social Services Department has disagreed with the IND’s own assessment on age, the IND has normally accepted the Social Services Department’s judgment. However, according to R(B) v London Borough of Merton, [2003] EWCA 1689; [2003] 4 All ER 280, there must be no tendency to assume that the applicant is an adult, or conversely that he/she is a child. Hence, social services departments cannot just adopt the decision of the Home Office; instead, each social services department has to decide for itself whether the applicant is indeed a child.
