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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Amelia Gentleman

Child asylum seekers in UK forced to share hotel rooms with adults

Four teenage boys photographed from the chest down
Young refugees who arrived in the UK amid renewed political controversy over age assessments for adolescent migrants. Photograph: Joel Goodman/the Guardian

Child asylum seekers are being forced to share hotel rooms with adults, as the Home Office’s new hotel “maximisation” programme begins doubling the capacity of refugee hotels by putting two strangers in roomsspaces that were previously single occupancy, a charity has warned.

The Refugee Council has warned that frequent misclassification of child refugees as adults at the UK border is exposing them to serious safeguarding risks, with the dangers heightened by the government’s new drive to reduce the cost of hotels by introducing a room-sharing policy.

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