How is the age of asylum seekers assessed?
In the media image: Sébastien Goldberg on Unsplash
The Netherlands determines the age of asylum seekers partly on appearance and behaviour. Several experts, including Mark Klaassen, warn that careful age determination is necessary to prevent children from being wrongly treated as adults.
The Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) carries out assessments to determine whether asylum seekers are actually minors when they have no documents to prove this. National newspaper NRC reports that these minors cannot be sent back until they are 18, even if they are not entitled to a residence permit. The assessments involve looking at characteristics such as facial stubble and expression, as well as physical posture. Files that were examined show that the same features can lead to opposite conclusions, with far-reaching consequences when it comes to reception facilities and asylum procedures.
Mark Klaassen conducted research for the Dutch Advisory Council on Migration and points out that Italy and Greece sometimes arrive at incorrect ages, upon which subsequent asylum applications are based. This often comes to light when doubts arise in the Netherlands during the age assessment. ‘Minors arriving in Lampedusa are put in a protected shelter, while adults are allowed to go to the mainland. So if you want to travel on, it’s in your interest to pretend you’re an adult.' His advice is to not blindly rely on age registrations in these countries, but to focus on a reliable way to deal with uncertainty regarding age.
Klaassen says that it is impossible to determine a person’s exact age based on appearance alone: 'You can't tell from someone’s appearance whether they’re 16 or 18.' For this reason, he argues that the assessment should be further expanded to include educational psychologists and doctors who can say something about a person's development.
More information?
Read the full article in NRC (€, in Dutch)