Hard to accurately determine the age of children seeking asylum
Hjern, A.; Ascher, H.
Lakartidningen 112
2015
ISSN/ISBN: 1652-7518 PMID: 26461513 Document Number: 681642
Many unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in Europe lack documents proving their age. X rays of the wrist and wisdom teeth are often used by European migration authorities to assess age in this situation. The large inter-individual differences in physical maturation during adolescence create such large margins of error for these methods that their informative value is very limited. The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare should reconsider its previous position on these methods and examine the possibility to include psychosocial methods in these age assessment procedures.