HUNDREDS of children face wrongful deportation to Rwanda due to flawed age assessments by the Home Office, a new report has warned.

At least 1,300 refugee children were put into unsupervised adult accommodation or detention between January 2022 and June 2023, according to the research.

“These figures are likely to be an underestimate because not all local authorities collect this data and not all children are being referred to children’s services,” said the joint report by the Refugee Council, the Helen Bamber Foundation and Humans for Rights Network.

It warned that measures in the Illegal Migration Act could lead to hundreds of children being wrongly removed from Britain and sent to Rwanda.

Many may also be sent to other countries and be at serious risk without ever meeting child protection professionals or having had a chance to challenge the Home Office’s decision, it added.

The Human for Rights Network also identified 15 cases of children wrongly identified as adults being charged under the Nationality and Borders Act, resulting in 14 spending as long as seven months in adult jails.

The joint report said the Home Office assessments rely on a short visual assessment by officials shortly after refugees arrive in Britain, despite its own guidance saying that “physical appearance is a notoriously unreliable basis for assessment of chronological age.”

A person deemed to be an adult by the Home Office is not referred for additional assessment, leading to children being exposed to “significant risks and potential harm” in unsupervised, shared accommodation or asylum detention with adult strangers, it said.

Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said: “Hidden from view, very vulnerable child refugees are being exposed to harm and abuse as a result of inaccurate Home Office decision-making.

“Each case is a child who is being put at risk and whose welfare is being forgotten. It is an alarming child protection failure and the government must take urgent action so every child is kept safe.”

Humans for Rights Network director Maddie Harris said the wrongful criminalisation of terrified children “is a direct result of flawed Home Office decision-making at the point of arrival.”

Helen Bamber Foundation’s Kamena Dorling warned that government plans to assess young refugees using X-rays will “simply cause further harm to those seeking protection in the UK.”

The Home Office said it was “strengthening” its age assessment process.