LONDON: A Conservative MP and sections of the British media have been accused of vilifying refugees by calling for dental tests to verify the ages of child refugees.
Images of some of those brought to the UK under a scheme to resettle unaccompanied children from the Calais refugee camp suggest they are over 18. The Sun tabloid newspaper claimed one of them was “35 if he’s a day” and that it was “fiasco” for the British authorities to take their ages on trust.
David Davies, chairman of the House of Commons Welsh affairs select committee, said dental checks or hand X-rays to check bone density should be used to check ages and stop Britain’s hospitality being abused.
But such reaction has prompted widespread outrage. The broadcaster and former footballer Gary Lineker tweeted that the reception by some had been “hideously racist and utterly heartless”.
The British Dental Association said imposing dental checks would be “inappropriate and unethical”.
An aerial view of a makeshift migrant camp near Calais, France. The government is gradually deporting migrants without right to asylum and relocating the rest to more than 160 centers around France. It is expected to close the camp in the coming weeks but no official dates have been announced. AP
Ruth Allen, the chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, agreed. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the first refugees to arrive under the scheme had been “vilified in the papers and their age has come into question to make a story”.
Davies responded: “I don’t want to vilify anyone, and I would like to see genuine children being brought in, but I think we have got a right to raise this question. If we don’t raise this question we allow ourselves to be carried along on a tide of emotion, Lily Allen-style with tears in our eyes. What we are going to end up doing is very quickly exhausting the well of hospitality that exists in Britain.
“People in Britain want to help children but we don’t want to be taken for a free ride either, by people who seem to have got to the front of the queue even though they clearly look in some cases a lot older than 18.”
He added: “We should use age checks, dental checks, because we do need to make sure the public have confidence in the system.”
The British Dental Association pointed out that dental checks were unreliable for assessing age. A spokesman said: “It’s not only an inaccurate method for assessing age, but it is both inappropriate and unethical to take radiographs of people when there is no health benefit for them.
“X-rays taken for a clinically justified reason must not be used for another purpose without the patient’s informed consent, without coercion and in full knowledge of how the radiograph will be used and by whom.”
Davies suggested other tests including a hand X-ray to test bone density. He added: “We need to be quite hard-nosed here. People are desperate they will say what they need to say to get in.”
Allen said medical tests would be “very intrusive and could be retraumatising”. She added: “If there are issues about the age of the people who have come in in this first cohort, then that can be looked at. But the key issue is how do we bring the hundreds of children who are in the camp who have a right to be here under various conventions and obligations and how do we ensure that there is now a process to get all of those brought in to the UK. We need to ensure that children can come through quickly and have their rights met.”
The spokesman for the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip), Patrick O’Flynn, called for Gary Lineker to be sacked from presenting Match of the Day for expressing political views on the issue.
The Home Office says its age assessments are based on interviews and judgements about physical appearance and demeanour.
The first female child refugee, a teenager from Eritrea, arrived in the UK from France on Tuesday along with 12 male refugees aged between 13 and 17 on the second coach to carry unaccompanied refugee children from Calais to Britain.
The refugee camp is expected to be closed after French court rejected an appeal from aid groups to delay the clearance. French authorities are expected to empty the camp in Calais in the coming weeks and dismantle it by the start of winter.
