BDA Speaks Out Against Unethical Asylum Tests
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- Published: Thursday, 30 November 2023 14:03
- Written by Peter Ingle
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As the government struggles to appear in control of migration to the UK, the BDA has contributed to a joint letter to the Home Secretary describing proposed age assessments as unethical.
The letter is a collaboration between the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), the British Dental Association (BDA) and the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). They have written to James Cleverly outlining their concerns over what they describe as unscientific age assessments to be used on those asylum seekers who say that they are children.
This came as House of Lords Peers debated government legislation on the use of scientific methods. Baroness Brinton proposed an amendment for the regulations to be withdrawn until more information on the impact of the policy has been provided. This follows a recent highly critical report from the Lords Secondary Legislation Committee.
The proposed methods include the use of MRI and X-ray examination of claimant’s teeth and bones. Alongside this the government has not yet set out how such tests would interact with the currently used legal framework for assessing the age of young asylum seekers, where there are already established social work assessments. All three organisations consider the new plans to have an unethical and inaccurate nature. They have persistently spoken out against the use of x-rays and other biological methods of age assessment.
It is RCPCH’s position that exposure to radiation through x-ray imaging for a non-medical purpose is not ethical. Furthermore they claim that there is insufficient evidence to make accurate conclusions about the age of this population of children from the methods currently available and proposed by the Government. The Government’s own Scientific Advisory Committee has advised against the proposals.
In addition there is considerable confusion over who will conduct the medical investigations, how requests are going to be raised, and who will bear the cost. Another issue is that these assessments could have an impact on the NHS at a time when there are already major delays in offering x-ray and MRI appointments to patients. The Secondary Legislation Committee in the House of Lords had itself called out the poor process that has been followed in developing this legislation.
Amongst comments by RCPCH Officer for Child Protection, Professor Andrew Rowland, was that the proposals would, “hinge life-changing decisions for some of the most vulnerable young people in our society on unspecific scientific outcomes.” There are concerns that the threat of holding refusal to undergo the procedures against claimants, means that they would be done without informed consent, which must be free from duress. What they describe as an, “atrocious policy”, results in “a slide away from that core principle, as it places such significant consequences on the refusal of biological age assessments, even when the child in question might not have the capacity or competence to consent.”
British Dental Association Chair, Eddie Crouch, said: “Dentists are health professionals, not border guards, and we want no part in age checks that fail basic tests on ethics and accuracy. These x-rays can never deliver the precision required to draw a line between vulnerable young people and adults. The Home Office have been reaching for silver bullets and come back with pseudo-science.
Summing up, Dr Ruth Allen, Chief Executive of the British Association of Social Workers, said:
“In short, the adoption of biological methods violates long-standing rights in relation to informed medical consent, offer no real advantages in assessing age and produce a procedural quagmire of unallocated responsibilities. We need to ditch these plans immediately.”
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