I was concerned to read that Priti Patel is threatening to use X-rays of forearm bones or DNA methylation for age checks on migrants (Report, 15 October).
My own research into child migration for the film Child Migrants Welcome? highlighted various troubling aspects to such practices. Senior social services officers confirmed what medical professionals had already established – that there is at least a two-year margin of error with such tests. That is besides it being unethical to take radiographs of people without health benefits.
When Mariam, a 16-year-old who fled enforced female genital mutilation and marriage in Guinea was accused of lying about her age by the Home Office, she was thrown out of her social services accommodation. Gulwali Passarlay, author of The Lightless Sky: An Afghan Refugee Boy’s Journey of Escape to a New Life in Britain, having escaped the Taliban and travelled along across 11 countries to unite with his brother in the UK, almost gave up hope when questioned about his age.
Two Home Office staff I met volunteered their belief that most child migrants lie about their age. But the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, has noted that, since 2017, about 90% of those who claimed to be children were in fact found to be children. The proposed nationality and borders bill is wrong for many reasons, but the Home Office’s insistence that most child refugees are lying about their age, against the evidence, confirms Kenan Malik’s assertion in the Observer in August 2021 that “what has developed over the years is a bunker mentality in the Home Office in which the starting point is to view asylum seekers – and migrants more broadly – with suspicion and seek ways of rejecting them”.
Dr Eithne Nightingale
London
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