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<h1><span style="color: #0c3951;">Children seeking asylum</span></h1><p>When a child seeks safety in the UK, they need security and care. Instead they face more uncertainty.</p>

Children seeking asylum

When a child seeks safety in the UK, they need security and care. Instead they face more uncertainty.

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What children face

When a child seeks safety in the UK on their own, after facing violence, loss, trauma and abuse, arriving here should be the end of their troubles. They need security and care – a place to heal and to build their future. They need to know their asylum claim will be considered soon, and that they have a legal representative making the best case possible for them. Their wellbeing and their rights as children should take precedence over all else. But this is far from the reality we see.

Unaccompanied children often have to wait many months for their asylum claim to be decided.  When it is, too often the Home Office makes poor decisions leading to refusals and a lengthy appeals process. Due to an ongoing crisis in legal aid, many children are navigating this process without a lawyer. Some children also face a battle to prove that they are children at all (see our Age Assessments page).

They told me that if you don’t get your status, you are not allowed to work, you are not allowed to stay in this country, you are not allowed to study, and they might send you back to your country. And that really influenced my mental health. (Faheem, our 2023 report)

And over years of hostile anti-refugee legislation, children, along with adults seeking asylum, have been treated as a political football. Again and again, children’s rights come last, “tough” immigration enforcement comes first and instead of stability and security they are left in limbo unable to move forward.

That’s what I want to show, that’s the feeling that comes. Being forgotten. (Amara, our 2023 report)

Together with the children we represent in our casework and support through the All4One group, we have worked to highlight the injustices they face. It doesn’t have to be this way – there are simple solutions that would make transformational differences for these children.

Our asks

1. Decisions on children's asylum claims must be high quality and should be made within six months.

2. All children in the asylum system must have legal representation.

3. Children should be treated as children first and foremost, and their wellbeing seen as paramount.

4. Children who "age out" of the asylum system due to delays should not be disadvantaged.

Report: "We lost our lives when we arrived here"

In 2023, we reported that children we represented were waiting on average 480 days for a decision on their asylum claim. They were also facing very long waits for legal representation. They told us this left them feeling forgotten and hopeless, unable to get on with their lives, struggling to engage with their education. Social workers and legal representatives warned of the grave risk to children’s mental health.

Our report was covered in The Guardian.

Read our report

Other work

Wasted childhoods

Our 2021 report highlighted how the government’s failure to handle asylum decision-making during the Covid-19 pandemic was leaving children emotionally and physically falling apart.

It was covered in the Guardian.

Read the report

Resources for professionals

In 2023 the Home Office introduced a “streamlined asylum process” for children, involving “preliminary information meetings” (PIMs). Our briefing advises social workers on how to support children in this process.

In 2026 a pilot was introduced for some children to have their asylum claim processed without a Statement of Evidence Form (SEF). We shared this briefing for local authorities.

Please see Related Resources for more on children and young people in the asylum system.

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