Germany looks into ultrasound age tests on unaccompanied minor refugees
Age can have a huge implication on the future prospects of an asylum-seeker in Germany. In principle, unaccompanied minors — under the age of 18 and without family — cannot be deported. Upon their arrival in Germany, unaccompanied minors also have the right to immediately go to school or start a training course.
Debate in Germany over mandatory age checks on unaccompanied minor refugees has drifted on and off the agenda for months. In practice, tests to determine a refugee’s age currently differ from state to state. But discussions were brought to a halt last year when the German Medical Association (BÄK) rejected a proposal by the Health Ministry to introduce mandatory age checks using X-ray on ethical and medical grounds, calling it “an interference in their human welfare.”
Now, in the search for an alternative, German Health Minister Jens Spahn is pumping €1 million euros ($1.1 million) into a study to find out if ultrasound can be used to determine people’s age. A small, portable device, not much larger than a shoebox, has been developed by the Fraunhofer Institute.
“I can understand why doctors are reluctant to use X-rays when determining the age of young migrants,” said Spahn. “But we need to determine age. Because this has a bearing on the asylum process and — when there is doubt — on legal proceedings. That’s why we have to find a way to make this as minimally invasive as possible.”
Results of the €1-million study are due by the end of 2020.
Read more: Child migrants struggle to survive northern France
Reliability yet to be tested
Critics of the X-ray age tests warn that radiation technology could harm the body, and say the precision of results has also been scrutinized.
Certain carpal bones in the wrist are initially composed of cartilage at young age and ossify only gradually. The status of this development process, which is correlated with age, can be determined using X-rays, but the process doesn’t happen at the same rate for everyone. As a result, an X-ray test of a hand bone can have a margin of error of up to three years; a person who claims to be 18 years old could be anywhere from 15 to 21 years old.
BÄK President Frank Ulrich Montgomery has welcomed the possibility of using ultrasound instead of X-rays, but told DW the reliability of the results has yet to be tested.
‘Same category as criminals’
Even if ultrasound technology is proven to be more accurate than X-ray tests, Bernd Mesovic, head of legal policy at the refugee association Pro Asyl, still disagrees with the political debate in Berlin.
“The health minister is putting unaccompanied minors in the same category as criminals,” said Mesovic, adding that mandatory age determination using X-rays is only allowed in the context of criminal proceedings or on medical grounds.
“If a few 19 or 20-year-olds who fled their homes are given the chance to be educated and integrate into Germany because they said they were a couple of years younger, this is better than the alternative which could result in their prospects being diminished,” he said.
Syrian refugee Juody Yuon was one of the 70,000 unaccompanied minors who came to Germany between 2015 and 2017. On arriving in Passau, on the Austrian border with Germany, Yuon — who was 16 at the time — underwent an X-ray of his arm so that authorities could determine his age.
“I don’t have a problem with the age tests,” he told DW. “If someone has lied about their age, you don’t know what else they might have lied about,” he said, adding that each case should be considered individually.
Yuon, too, said the biggest problem lies in the precision of the current X-ray method. In his case, however, the test appeared to be carried out to confirm the age on his ID card.
Murder case sparks age test debate
The entire debate over mandatory age checks on unaccompanied minor refugees was first ignited by the murder of a 15-year-old girl in Kandel in December 2017. The suspect, Abdul D., a young man from Afghanistan, was sentenced to eight years and six months for the murder of his ex-girlfriend.
On arriving unaccompanied in Germany in April 2016, Abdul D. told authorities that he was 15. After the murder, however, doubts were cast and a report concluded that at the time of the crime he was at least 17 years and 6 months old, but probably already 20 years old. The district court ultimately decided to try him as a minor.
In other EU countries, mandatory checks already exist. In Belgium, for example, every asylum-seeker is checked if the age cannot be proven by documents. An X-ray is taken of the teeth, the hands and the collarbone. In Italy, wrists are X-rayed, and in Sweden, knees and teeth are scanned using magnetic resonance imaging, though these tests are voluntary and are considered legal proof.
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Children on the run
Uncertain future
Tens of thousands of Yazidis have fled the terror group “Islamic State” in Iraq this past year. Nobody knows when they will be able to return to their home villages in the Sinjar Mountains. Like this boy in a refugee camp in Silopi near the Turkish-Iraqi border, they are still looking towards an uncertain future.
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Children on the run
Setting up camp beds
In many German municipalities, people seeking refuge have to be accommodated in emergency shelters set up in large halls. In this gymnasium in the northern Bavarian town of Neustadt bei Coburg, a child helps to get the camp beds ready for the night.
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Children on the run
In no mans’ land
Although this little girl is stranded in a border area between Greece and Macedonia, she still manages a confident grin. In the past few weeks, thousands of people have tried to pass through the region to catch trains to Serbia, then onwards to Hungary.
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Children on the run
Sleeping in the aisles
In a crowded train traveling from Budapest to Munich, refugee children sleep in the passageway. Like thousands of other people, they’re making the attempt to reach western Europe via the Balkans. Hungary, like other EU nations, let them through for a short while, before sealing off its borders.
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Children on the run
Fleeing war
In Yemen, tens of thousands of people have packed up their families and belongings to escape the violence in one of the Arab world’s poorest countries. Houthi rebels and Saudi-backed government troops have been warring for months. Among the thousands of dead are many children.
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Children on the run
Queuing for food
Without help from abroad, many people in Syria would not be able to survive. These children are patiently waiting for food parcels at a tent city set up in Idlib.
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Children on the run
Strange transport systems
How to buy a ticket for local public transport is just one of the many things newcomers to Germany need to learn. Here, the minister of transport for Saxony-Anhalt, Thomas Webel, gives refugee children a lesson in how to use a ticket machine.
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Children on the run
Out of the camp
The International Organization for Migration counts more than 121,000 people as having crossed the Mediterranean from Africa to Italy in unseaworthy boats so far this year. More than 2,600 have died in the attempt. Most of those who make want to travel further north. For this child and his family, the refugee camp on the Italian island of Lampedusa is probably only a transit station.
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Children on the run
School as a distraction
Going to school provides a little diversion from the otherwise dreary everyday life at Thet Kel Pyin refugee camp in Myanmar. Thousands of members of the Rohingya Muslim minority have been driven from their villages. They have fled to other parts of the Southeast Asian country or abroad.
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Children on the run
Childhood as a soldier
In many conflicts in African nations, children have been forced to fight. It’s only rarely that children and adolescents are freed from the clutches of militias, such as here in the Central African Republic.
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Children on the run
Displaced by Boko Haram
The terror group Boko Haram spreads fear and horror in northern Nigeria and neighboring countries. The United Nations children’s organization UNICEF estimates that about 1.4 million children are fleeing from Boko Haram. Here, refugee children receive a meal at the Geidam registration center in Nigeria.
Article source: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-looks-into-ultrasound-age-tests-on-unaccompanied-minor-refugees/a-47161360