Refugee children arriving in the UK (AFP via Getty Images)

Vulnerable children arriving in the UK by small boats are being placed in an adult prison that houses a significant number of sex offenders. Instances have been noted where unaccompanied children, many of whom seem to have been trafficked, are sent to HMP Elmley in Kent and placed among adult prisoners. The latest inspection of Elmley reveals that the section for foreign nationals also includes sex offenders.

Staff at Humans For Rights Network have identified 14 unaccompanied children sent to an adult prison, with one believed to have been 14 years old when spending seven months in Elmley. Many of these cases involve Sudanese or South Sudanese children who reached the UK through Libya, often after experiencing trafficking or exploitation.

'Children are locked down in their cells'

Calls have arisen for the Home Office to investigate this issue urgently and release any potential children held in adult jails. Maddie Harris from the Human Rights Network emphasized that these children are profoundly harmed, lacking proper legal aid and the ability to challenge arbitrary age decisions by immigration officials.

"These children are locked down in their cells, not knowing who to call for help, prevented from adequately accessing legal advice and from challenging the arbitrary decision made about their ages by immigration officials upon arrival in the UK. These are children looking for safety who instead find themselves in an adult prison, denied that protection and exposed to great harm," Harris said as quoted by The Guardian.

Anita Hurrell from the charity Coram stated that criminalizing and sending these children to adult prisons is both wrong and dangerous.

"It is wrong to criminalize these children and dangerous to send them to adult men’s prisons," Hurrell said as quoted by The Guardian.

The children facing this situation are charged with immigration offenses under the Nationality and Borders Act, introduced recently to deter illegal entry into the UK. Legal experts warn that the practice of sending unaccompanied minors to adult prisons appears to be growing. The criticism against this practice is seen as another aspect of a flawed asylum system, with a backlog of more than 175,000 cases.

Age assessment: 'A problematic procedural device'

The age assessments performed by the Home Office to classify these children as adults have been criticized as hasty and arbitrary. Some Home Office decisions have already been overturned after detailed assessments by independent or local authority specialists.

Recent data obtained by The Observer reveals that hundreds of asylum-seeking children are wrongly treated as adults by the Home Office. Many councils' data show that more than half of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children subjected to Home Office age assessments are later confirmed to be children.

Syd Bolton from Equal Justice For Migrant Children described age assessment as a problematic procedural device, which he believes acts as a barrier to accessing asylum protection and services for young asylum seekers.

The practice is a "deliberate barrier to accessing asylum protection and denying young asylum seekers access to children’s services. It is a major tool of the Home Office in discrediting an asylum claim," Bolton highlighted.

Incorrectly categorizing children as adults can lead to them being placed in unsupervised accommodation alongside adults. Despite Elmley's latest inspection stating it is no longer designated for sexual offenders, there are still 70 such inmates present.

Recent reports highlighted a sex offender being held at Elmley, convicted of multiple sex offenses, including child abuse. The impact on children held in the prison is reported as deeply harmful, with lasting trauma.

Anita Hurrell refers to a court ruling that unaccompanied minors should be cared for by councils where they can be safe and recover. It's believed that many more unaccompanied children might be placed in adult prisons. The Human Rights Network has identified such cases by noting young individuals challenging their assigned birth dates.

'Children are deeply harmed'

A government spokesperson acknowledges the challenge of accurately assessing age but emphasizes the importance of preventing adults from posing as children. The government aims to enhance age verification methods, including scientific measures like X-rays. At the time of the article's publication, the government had not been provided with sufficient information to investigate the concerns raised by The Observer.

Harris added, "The children are always deeply harmed by the time they have spent in prison in the UK, expressing clearly how they are unable to sleep, do not understand why they were held there, and struggle to speak about their time there."

"It should be made clear that neither adult nor child should be criminalized for arriving in the UK to claim asylum, an offense that clearly contravenes the refugee convention."