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Resolution 2195 (2017)
Child-friendly age assessment for unaccompanied migrant children
1. More and more unaccompanied children
are travelling to Europe as they flee conflicts, seek protection or
look for a better life. Many of them are seeking reunification with
their families in Europe. The United Nations Children’s Emergency
Fund (UNICEF) reported that 170 000 unaccompanied minors travelled
to Europe in 2015 and 2016. These children often do not have identity
documents, which poses a real challenge for the authorities tasked
with identifying, protecting and supporting them. In order to provide
children the necessary protection and assistance to which they are
entitled, it is necessary to determine the age of any undocumented young
migrant who may be a child.
2. Age assessment is a process by which authorities seek to establish
the chronological age, or age range, of a person, or determine whether
an individual is an adult or a child. Currently there is no process
of assessment, medical or otherwise, which can determine the exact
age of an individual with 100% accuracy. There is also considerable
variation in the methods and quality of age assessments undertaken
in European States.
3. The Parliamentary Assembly has raised the issue of age assessment
of unaccompanied children in several resolutions, in particular Resolution 2136 (2016) on
harmonising the protection of unaccompanied minors in Europe, Resolution 1810 (2011) “Unaccompanied
children in Europe: issues of arrival, stay and return”, Resolution 1996 (2014) “Migrant
children: what rights at 18?” and Resolution 2020 (2014) on the alternatives
to immigration detention of children, in which it establishes a
number of safeguards pertaining to age assessment, emphasising that
these procedures should only be carried out if there are reasonable
doubts about a person’s age and should always be conducted in the
best interests of the child.
4. The Assembly welcomes and supports the Parliamentary Campaign
to End Immigration Detention of Children and in particular its action
to promote child-sensitive age assessment of migrant children.
5. The Assembly is particularly concerned that certain age-assessment
methods can be frightening and traumatising for children and may
involve inhuman and degrading treatment. In addition, the age-determination process
can be negatively life-changing: if a child’s age is disputed or
if he or she is pronounced an adult, immigration detention and removal
are likely to become a reality. In cases of detention, the negative
physical and psychological effects on children’s health and development
are far-reaching and lasting.
6. The many methods of age assessment used in Europe reflect
the lack of a harmonised approach and agreed method. The Assembly
believes that the development of a child-sensitive, holistic model
of age assessment would enable European States to meet the needs
of unaccompanied or separated children. It therefore calls on member
States to:
6.1. conduct case-by-case,
reliable age assessment of unaccompanied migrant children only in
cases of serious doubt about the child’s age and as a last resort,
in the best interests of the child;
6.2. provide unaccompanied migrant children with reliable information
about age-assessment procedures in a language that they understand,
so that they can fully understand the different stages of the process
they are undergoing and its consequences;
6.3. appoint a guardian to support each unaccompanied migrant
child individually during the age- assessment procedure;
6.4. ensure that an unaccompanied migrant child or his or her
representative can challenge the age-assessment decision through
appropriate administrative or judicial appeal channels;
6.5. use only as a last resort dental or wrist x-ray examinations
and all other invasive medical procedures for the purpose of determining
the age of unaccompanied or separated migrant children;
6.6. ensure that all medical examinations are sensitive to
the child's gender, culture and vulnerabilities and that the interpretation
of results takes into account the child's national and social background
as well as previous experiences;
6.7. prohibit, in all situations, the use of physical sexual
maturity examinations for the purpose of determining the age of
unaccompanied and separated migrant children;
6.8. prohibit the detention of unaccompanied or separated children
who are awaiting or undergoing age assessment, and always apply
the margin of error in favour of the person so that the lowest age
in the margin determined by the assessment is recorded as the person’s
age;
6.9. identify and provide alternative accommodation options
for children awaiting or undergoing age assessment, with a view
to avoiding the detention of children during disputes about age,
including by temporary placement in centres for children where appropriate
safeguards should be in place to protect them and other children
in the centres;
6.10. support and promote the development of a single, holistic
model of age assessment in Europe, based on the presumption that
the person is a minor;
6.11. whenever possible, ensure that the procedure of age assessment
is carried out by professionals acquainted with the children’s ethnic,
cultural and developmental characteristics.