Age assessment remains an important subject of forensic medicine due to true age disputes caused by unorganized birth records and registrations. In this study, it is aimed to draw attention to the importance of age assessment, reasons for age assessment demands and demographics of cases who appear to be in children age bracket according to their birth records. Study consisted of cases who were evaluated at Ege University, Medicine Faculty, Department of Forensic Medicine between 01.01.2008 and 30.06.2014 for age assessment and who were under 18 at the time of application. Reports were examined retrospectively to establish gender, age according to birth record, occupation, number of siblings, birthplace, birth order, claimed age, assessed age, owner of the demand and reason for age assessment of the cases. Data were analysed using SPSS (version 18.0). Of the 214 cases involved in the study, 155 (72.4%) were female and 59 (27.6%) were male. Age according to birth record ranged between 3 and 17, mean age was 14.0±3.1 Civil Courts of First Instance ranked first (61.7%) among the owners of the demand for age assessment. Most frequent reason for age assessment demands was found to be early sexual activity and pregnancy (n=49, 22.9%) 63.6% of the cases claimed to be older than their ages according to their birth registrations. Various legal and social circumstances call for age assessment, particularly age assessment for sex crimes are prominent among children age bracket. As the hospital birth rates increase and birth registrations remain well-organized, applications for the age assessment of living individuals are expected to decline.
Key words: Age assessment, children, sex crimes, pregnancy
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