The forensic tests were designed to make age assessment during the asylum process more accurate and to dispel all reasonable doubt. In 2015, the Swedish Migration Board received harsh criticism for implicitly trusting migrants' own age claims and largely taking their word for it.
Up until now, the National Forensic Medicine Agency received around 4,200 requests from the Migration Board. It was only asked to carry out its own tests when a person's age is in question. So far, 581 people were age tested, of which 442 proved to be at least 18 or older. Remarkably, a whole 430 of them were men.
Earlier this week, the majority of the so-called unaccompanied children from Morocco were found to have lied about their age and identity, the Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet reported, citing a memorandum from the Border Police to the Justice Ministry. The document showed that of 65 of those 77 that were expelled from Sweden used a false identity when applying for asylum. The check of fingerprints with Moroccan authorities also revealed that most of the alleged children were in fact grown-up men.
"Of the 50 who claimed to be minors at the time of the asylum application, there were actually only two minors," Patrik Engström of the Border Police wrote in the memorandum, as quoted by Svenska Dagbladet.
Nevertheless, the Migration Board stressed that bluff-revealing figures did not suggest that asylum seekers lying about their age are representative of the migrants, as tests only were carried out in cases where existing evidence was considered insufficient. According to Daniel Salehi of the Swedish Migration Board, most unaccompanied children are "indeed" under the age of 18.
In 2015, Sweden received a record 35,000 asylum applications from "lone children," followed by 2,200 in 2016.
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