Grown men pretending to be children

[Happypie]

AIBU to be very worried that safeguarding has broken down in England. I have worked in several schools in London where some of the newly arrived “children” were grown men. We have complained to social services and they admitted that the pupils were blatantly men but there was nothing they could do.
These men are being put into classes and foster homes with actual children.
We do not allow adults without DBS checks to have unfettered access to children unless they pretend to be children.
Head teachers hands are also tied. The only way to change things seems to be through parent complaints like in the story below. This is not safeguarding. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-suffolk-46070239

Yes, there is some nuance then. Accepted.

But not a man in his thirties or beyond.

Vulnerable children sacrificed on the alter of “progression”, what else is new?

But I do think perhaps there ARE young teens who look much older than perhaps most white brits would expect

No they don’t. Ds has friends of similar age and older and there is a difference.

Like when I saw the boys going into ds’s college class it didn’t matter whether they were black, white or Arabic you could tell they were much older.

I'm sure if there were gangs of white men going around grooming girls it would definitely be in the press

I work in a child safeguarding role and I can assure you that there are indeed gangs of white British men who groom and sexually exploit children.

Surely there's a way of carbon dating someone or whatever the human equivalent is to determine their age?

Adult education is being dismantled. If you don't have a secondary education there is virtually no way to get one in the U.K. if you are over 19. An access course assumes you have been out of education for a while but that you have had a good education.

If you arrive in a country and want to make something of yourself you need an education there is no legal way of getting one post 19 in the U.K..

Would you rather 'these people' lived on benefits or should they just clean our toilets?

Happened twice where I am. Impossible to get anything done without a massive fight. The reason I was given was that they had got into this country with the date of birth they'd provided and been believed so this couldn't be changed.

i hate to be the one to say that in poor countries children DO mature faster (as in look older then they actually are) due to enviromental hardships (aka they have to do hard physical labour etc)

While i do not doubt their are people that take the piss but i have seen 15 year olds that DO look like adults in their mid 20s i am not saying this to be devils advocate it is why x-raying stuff like wrist bones or clavicle bones (which only fuse in the mid 20s little variance in this due to environment so is most used in aging skeletons for archaeology).

Would you rather 'these people' lived on benefits or should they just clean our toilets?

I’d rather men weren’t posing as Year 11s and having serious amounts of money spent on them to learn English with a special tutor, as happened in one school I worked in. It was embarrassingly obvious that the man was not 15/16. I’ve never seen a 15 year old with serious wrinkles.

Then you have not obivously been and seen children in war zones then.

(this experiment would be totally unethical but hey you take 100 children from birth you give 50 of them normal western childhoods and the other 50 get deposited into War zones like Afghanistan, Then at 16 you line up all the children up and i would be willing to bet 100k that ALL the children from the war zone group would look significantly older then their pampered peers)

But this aging only really become pronounced after the ages of 12 though and like people have said as well different ethnicties do become much hairier earlier as well.

And the only reliable way to determine age is by X-ray of wrist bones or clavicle bones as if they are fused they are OLDER then mid 20s basically the aging actually is only for broad age groups and do NOT work for teenagers (its why in archeology the have age categories of infant 0-2 juvenile 2-10 and young adult 11-25 (puberty causes all sorts of weird and wonderful changes and other then the couple of bones mentioned have vast variety )

As a teenager I was at an under-subscribed school near a home for unaccompanied minors, so I had quite a few at school with me, 1 definitely was deported having lied about their age, although it was kept quiet, and several did not look under 18. I don't think any of the guys I was at school with were in their 30s but 20s quite possibly, I don't think they had any more motive than it is easier to be allowed to stay here if you are a child.

I’ve seen plenty of teenagers from war zones.

If anything, they look younger.

Puberty starts earlier now in developed countries because of better nutrition. We are taller and sturdier and go through puberty at an earlier age than even twenty years ago.

This bonkers emperors new clothes game helps no one.

I am in my late 30s. I don’t have grey hair thanks to regular hairdresser visits and I don’t have many wrinkles or lines - however I don’t look ‘young.’ There is a maturity to the face that can’t always be explained by the ageing process itself.

Don't know about the case in the link, but I volunteer in an organisation that 'settles' and supports refugee children. Admittedly there have been a few that I felt were closer to 18 rather than the 14/15 that they claimed to be, but IME they were very focussed on their education and one now has a PhD 10 years after coming. IME there are more girls than boys who lie about their age, they (and no doubt their families) are desperate to get a good education and entering school as a child greatly enhanced the chances of that. During the Somali war we saw a lot of 'girls' come and they are all in higher education.

Err, the OPs main point is as an adult working alongside we have to get a CRB to see if we are safe to work with and mix with kids.
There are desperate 30 year olds wanting an education so we put them in schools to help them get ahead so they don’t just clean toilets. What about CRBs for them (as they are over 18) that have actually been developed to protect children?
Suddenly a 30 doesn’t need one because he wants an education?
And anyone notice if there are any 30 year old women from other countries trying to be in year 11 for an education? Why is it just men?
Back to the original question, do we just do away with CRBs? Isn’t the whole point to protect the under 18s...?

Would you rather 'these people' lived on benefits or should they just clean our toilets?

In the case of economic migrants - and to be clear I'm not talking here about genuine refugees - I'd rather they didn't come at all if they've not applied through the proper process

FWIW there's nothing wrong with seeking to move to improve prospects, but I'd suggest that doing it illegally casts severe doubt on true motives, as well as just how great their contribution is likely to be

There's also the point that a more stringent process for working out who's who could enable more resources for those in real need of help

It’s just wrong. I have to give my date of birth all the time. My children have to give their date of birth for doctors, dentists, schools, yet someone from another country can come to our country and it’s rude to even question it, we just have to accept their word, how wrong is that. Even though it’s obvious they are at least 35.

How exactly would a CRB help or even be carried out on an immigrant who’s age is unproven???confused

Really, it confuses you that no-one is suggesting that they need a CRB check, just that a simple test is undertaken to make sure they're not 30. Even the most inaccurate test in the world can tall the difference between 16 and 30. They shouldn't be in school at all should they?

Is the proposal actually that only children who are prepubescent and “cute” be welcomed here?

Who has actually said that? Why are you so resistant to any attempt to define who is a child and who isn't? Surely it would be better for everyone if they are settled into an age appropriate support network.

Why if it's so inaccurate and against human rights do other countries (Like that horrible hell-hole Sweden ) perform these checks?

I am living in Scandinavia and my DH has worked with underaged minors (14 to 18) for the past 4 years. This country took in the highest number of refugees in Europe per capita in 2016.

My DH and his colleagues say around 50-60 per cent lie about their age. It is not true that the 'minors' are age tested in this country. But there have been lots of calls to do it. It has been said that dental and bone density scans can give a reading to within 2 years. My DH and his colleagues say that if you had a cut off of 20 - for a scan, giving a 2 year grace, you could rule out the over 20 year olds for a start off. One of the refugees was actually called Papa by the others because he was supposedly married with children but was at the local high school. I have mistaken minors for his work colleagues several times. My DH said that looks aside one of the tell tale signs was that the older ones were generally secretive and kept a low profile. They would talk about the journey but not about the life from where they fled. The genuine under aged minors at some point behave like ordinary teenagers - had petty squabbles with each other, behaved petulantly and said 'its not fair' they were very open about their lives and eager to get in touch with family. The older ones did nothing to draw attention to themselves.

There is enormous benefit to being classified as a minor. Housed in a HVB home, free medical care, education, legal service. Local activities - football, basketball, badminton all free. They get a laptop for school work and assigned as mentor outside of the home. Once over 18 they are given flats and furniture allowance and access to on call help until 21. There was also no question of them being denied the right to stay until 18.

Over 18s (adults) where refugee status is being determined are sent to a converted barracks (now closed due to more families and less lone young men) and although free to come and go there were not the benefits or leg up from being classed as a minor.

Most definitely there were older men at the one local school.

That's interesting @KC225. Thank you.