CAMILLA KAJ

Age Assessments
In Denmark the authorities ask the minor refugees to take off their clothes to examine their age

UMI is written on the black folder lying in front of me. That’s what they call them. UMI stands for Unaccompanied Minor Refugees. I am in a building next to the biggest hospital in Denmark. It looks like something from the 1970s. Inside there is a brown tiled wall, black tables with red legs, and in a moment four “UMIs” will arrive here at the Department of Forensic Medicine.

I often revisit this room in my thoughts. I spent a lot of time here ten years ago. I know it happens the same way today, and I know it will continue if we do nothing. That is why I want to tell you about them and about how they take place: the age assessments.

A man comes in through the door. He passes the wall with the brown tiles and walks straight toward me. He greets me.

“Support person?” he asks.

I nod. He is the interpreter.

“My name is Camilla,” I say.

Then the door opens, and the four young people who were dropped off outside in a taxi come in. They look like people who want to turn around and run away. I introduce myself and explain that we are at a hospital where an age assessment will be carried out. I notice myself smiling a lot, as if trying to compensate for the uncomfortable situation. But it makes no difference. They — the authorities — must examine their bodies in order to determine how old they are. The authorities do not believe what they say, and the young people have no documents to prove their age.

There is a big difference between being a child and an adult in Danish legislation — and an even greater difference in the opportunities and rights you have. That is why unaccompanied refugees must show up so the authorities can examine whether they are children or not by talking to them, measuring and weighing them, looking at their naked bodies, and taking X-rays of the bones in their left hand and, finally, their teeth. Based on these examinations, a written statement is produced with a probability assessment. This means that the conclusion includes a lower and upper limit, so the estimated age spans 2–3 years.

I read online that the method is called Greulich & Pyle and was developed in the United States in the 1950s. The method was created based on North American children and adolescents born between 1917 and 1942, and it takes neither ethnicity, socioeconomic parameters, nor the amount of stress a person has been exposed to into account.

There are some 18-year-olds who have tried to pass as 15. It makes sense when you have sat in on asylum interviews and heard about the Taliban—what they do, what these young people have seen, and what they have lost. Or heard about being captured and forced to serve in the military, held underground as prisoners. I would also do anything not to return to that. Or not to die, or to see the people you love being killed.

A woman in a white coat comes out through a glass door and calls the name of one of the boys. I stand up and smile at him. He rises quietly. Then the interpreter follows. The doctor introduces herself and asks us to come along. The others stay behind and wait.

The doctor walks ahead of us down a long corridor. It feels as if we walk forever. We pass closed doors. Strange pictures hang on the walls. The interpreter talks to me. I actually don’t like talking with the interpreter when it isn’t translated for the boy — what if he thinks we are talking about him? So I answer briefly. I send the boy a smile. He gives an almost invisible nod.

Finally the doctor opens a door into a room. She holds the door for us. The room is large and bright. At one end there is a desk with a computer and some chairs. At the other end there is a bed, a scale, and other instruments. In the middle hangs a large, heavy curtain. It smells of disinfectant.

The doctor speaks to him and explains what will happen.

“First we will measure and weigh you, then I will take some photos of you, and finally you will need to take off your clothes.”

The doctor shows the boy to the bed. The interpreter and I must stay on the other side of the curtain. The doctor takes out a camera. She instructs the boy to keep his lips apart so the entire set of teeth can be seen. She takes a photo of the teeth while holding the young person’s asylum seeker card next to his mouth.

I read online that in 2005 researchers in Taiwan conducted a study of 478 children where they tested the Greulich & Pyle method. The study showed a discrepancy of more than one year between actual age and measured age in some age groups. There have also been examples where siblings, after the examinations, have effectively “switched ages” — the older sister suddenly becoming the younger sister. In other words, the method involves considerable uncertainty, and for that reason it is not used in Sweden.

The doctor closes the door and pulls the curtain. The sound of the metal wire cuts through the room. Now the boy is asked to remove his clothes. Also his underwear. Then it is repeated in Pashto.

“I am not going to examine you, I am just going to look at you,” the doctor says. Her voice sounds kind.

The room is cold. I wonder what he is thinking. I know that some of them have never shown themselves naked to anyone before — only to their mothers. And then they come here, to a cold country, a cold system, and are ordered to take off their clothes.

I can hear the doctor’s voice from the other side of the curtain. She asks whether the scars are from the journey. The interpreter begins to translate. I interrupt:

“You must not ask about the scars.”

I look at the interpreter. He nods and then translates.

I have one day with these young people. Not even that — four hours. How am I supposed to show them that I am here for them? How can they trust me? I am just one of many adults they meet. Every time I am here, I confront my own powerlessness.

I can help by speaking up to the “system” — to the doctor, the dental technician, and the interpreter. By being a friendly presence throughout the day, someone who is on their side. But what can I really do? I have no influence over their case processing or their age assessment. If I am lucky, I see them again when they must attend a hearing with the Danish Immigration Service about the age they are assigned.

“You can put your clothes on again.”

Then the interpreter’s voice. The doctor pulls the curtain aside. She smiles briefly. I try to catch the boy’s eye, but he looks down at the floor. I feel that my smile probably looks painted on. The air is thick with discomfort.

As I sit here writing, it strikes me that the discomfort especially comes from the fact that these young people are met by a strict immigration policy which, if it could open its mouth and speak, would say: We do not really want to help you.

We walk along small paths and large roads from Rigshospitalet to the dental school. The mood lightens a little along the way. The air and the life of the city swirling around us helps. We enter the dental school where students move freely about. All these young people stand in stark contrast to our small group—they are getting an education and have their lives ahead of them. Our little group of “UMIs” does not know what the future holds. They do not even know whether they can stay in Denmark.

We are ushered into a room where we can sit and wait. The dental technician will take X-rays of the wisdom teeth. She comes into the waiting room and reads the boys’ names. I smile at her. The smile is not returned.

Some have never been to a dentist before and become nervous. In a small adjoining room there is a large machine that will take the X-rays. It looks like something from a spaceship. You have to step inside and place your head in a kind of holder in the middle while the entire machine rotates around you. Afterwards four images of the wisdom teeth must be taken. But before that, a plastic device has to be pushed far into the mouth to make the pictures possible.

It is uncomfortable. Some people’s gag reflex is triggered. For others it hurts, and some feel unwell. Sometimes the dental technician refuses to take the images if the young people show the slightest resistance, and then the assessments are made without them, which — as the Danish Immigration Service has told the young people — “may be detrimental to their case.”

I stand outside the small room and look in through the window while the machine circles around one of the boys. His eyes are extinguished, his teeth exposed, his lips stretched tight. Then the dental technician comes and releases him.

Three months later…

I sit ready at a computer in the Danish Immigration Service barracks. The video connection to the boy’s asylum center is being established. Finally he appears on the screen. The interpreter sits next to me. I wave to the boy. He smiles.

The caseworker, a woman with a black bob haircut greets him. Then she opens her mouth and gives the message:

“You have been assessed as most likely being over 18 years old.”

Then he runs. Out the door.

I sit there looking at a screen where an old office chair stares back at me. I do not know where he runs to or what happens to him. I will not find out either, because I am only a support person. I hope the staff at the center find him and comfort him.

I read about age assessments in a consultation response from 2024 in which the then Minister for Immigration and Integration, Kaare Dybvad (Social Democrats), writes:

“It should also be noted that decisions are made to initiate more age assessments than there are decisions about age. This is because a not insignificant proportion of unaccompanied minor asylum seekers disappear from the asylum center after it has been decided that an age assessment will be initiated. When they disappear, the asylum case is closed.”

But why do they disappear?

I do not think anyone wants to go through this examination, both because it is uncomfortable in itself and because it contains an underlying mistrust: that we do not believe what you say is your real age.

I know that Denmark has been criticized for the way we assess the age of unaccompanied minor refugees. These are children who have fled here without their parents; they are already an especially vulnerable group. One thing is to be a refugee; another thing entirely is to be a child (which you are when you are under 18) in a foreign country without your parents.

The examinations involve considerable uncertainty, and I do not understand why we do not talk more about the way we treat unaccompanied refugee children.

I write this because I hope others will help create a debate, pressure, or change, so that Denmark stops carrying out age assessments in the way we do today.

Camilla Kaj (b. 1989) is a Danish cultural sociologist and author, and has written the children’s books about Nour and Nora, which serve as tools to build bridges across religion, culture, and family structures, and to strengthen children’s rights. She has worked as a support person in the Danish asylum system on two occasions, ten years apart.