Germany's Federal Administrative Court is set on Thursday to decide on whether medical check-ups to identify the age of young asylum seekers will become a common practice in Germany, Deutsche Welle reported.
The legal proceedings involve an Afghan man who filed a complaint after he was deemed an adult following a visual examination (although he himself claimed to be minor).
Unaccompanied underage refugees in Germany are currently the responsibility of local youth welfare offices.
READ MORE: Europe Goes Right-Wing While Demoralized by Unstoppable Immigration — Analysts
Now, the court must make a decision on whether a visual examination should only be sufficient when an individual is clearly a minor or adult.
"That could mean a medical test would only be avoided if social workers and the refugee are in agreement as to age," Guido Kirchhoff, a research fellow of the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences told DW.
Otherwise, asylum seekers will have to undergo an obligatory medical test.
The German government has been mulling over the idea of introducing obligatory age tests for migrants who claim to be minors following several stabbing attacks by migrants on German teens that have taken place in recent months.
READ MORE: Afghan Teen Brutally Stabs Local Girl to Death in German Grocery Store — Reports
In late December 2017, an Afghan teen brutally stabbed a German girl to death in a grocery store. The young man who was said to be an unaccompanied asylum seeker from Afghanistan claimed to be underage, but later reports said that he might be in fact much older.
Earlier, a 19-year-old Afghan refugee reportedly tried to drown his 17-year-old German ex-girlfriend in the Havel River, in Berlin. According to investigators, the two were formerly a couple, and the crime may have been the result of a breakup.
Since 2015, Europe has been struggling to cope with the effects of hard-to-control immigration, with hundreds of thousands of migrants fleeing their conflict-torn countries in the Middle East. Many refugees have come to Germany without documents, making it hard for local authorities to establish their identity and age.
