Home Office age assessment scheme endangers child refugees and must be scrapped, NGOs say

Coalition of refugee support groups says board’s ‘traumatic’ and ‘flawed’ processes are putting children at risk

A coalition of refugee support groups has called for a Home Office organisation to be axed, claiming it is putting hundreds of children at risk.

The Refugee and Migrant Children’s Consortium, which consists of more than 100 organisations including the Refugee Council, Barnardo’s and the NSPCC, has published a report analysing the performance of the Home Office’s national age assessment board (NAAB), which was set up in March 2023 to determine the ages of young asylum seekers newly arrived in the UK, often on small boats.