Report calls for end to detention of child asylum seekers

Britain should stop detaining thousands of children of foreigners seeking asylum, the Independent Asylum Commission said in a report published on Thursday.

Calling for a comprehensive review of asylum seekers' treatment, the commission, a committee including politicians, lawyers and church leaders, was particularly concerned by the detention of an estimated 2,000 children each year.

'We hope that policy-makers will take note and look again at ending practices such as the detention of children,' said the commission's co-chair John Waite, a former High Court judge.

The commission also warned against the use of X-rays to assess young asylum seekers' age and called on the government to repeal a law that can be used to deny refused asylum seekers' families and to take their children into care.

'All those who seek sanctuary in the UK deserve to be treated with a dignity over which mere administrative convenience must never prevail.

'The people we met during our review were not the scroungers, troublemakers and ne'er-do-wells that are presented to us in media stereotypes, but decent people trying to maintain their dignity in difficult circumstances,' he said.

Numbers seeking asylum in Britain have fallen to around 23,000 a year, down from a peak of nearly 85,000 in 2002, when the number forced the issue to the top of the political agenda.

The commission said it had collected evidence from hundreds of individuals and organisations as it made more than 90 recommendations to the government's Borders and Immigration Agency to improve the way asylum seekers are treated.

The Commission also argued detention should be time-limited and subjected to judicial oversight.

'Our review has found that there is a considerable distance to travel until the reality of how we treat women, children and torture survivors who seek sanctuary in the UK matches that aspiration,' said Waite.

The Commission's finding were backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.

'The continuing use of detention for children seeking asylum - the most exposed of an already vulnerable group - needs to end,' Williams said in a statement.

'The best interests of the child should always be paramount in the administration of our immigration system and I hope that the Borders and Immigration Agency will consider carefully whether the status quo fulfils this.'