As illustrated in Figure 1, in the period 2008-2012 a rather consistent number of stateless persons were registered with residence rights in Denmark, ranging from around 3,000 to 3,500 individuals. In the following years, however, Denmark has seen a marked increase in the registered number of stateless persons, from 3,200 in 2012 to the 2017 level of 7,784. The number of persons of unknown nationality has remained equally stable around 100 persons, with a decrease to around 60 persons from 2014 and onwards. The surge in the number of stateless persons with residence rights in Denmark must be seen in light of a general rise in the number of asylum-seekers, including stateless asylum-seekers arriving from Syria. At the same time, the changes reflect the registration procedure changes in 2011. Due to the increased focus on statelessness, and the 4,000 letters that were sent out to persons at risk of being wrongfully registered, more than 800 persons were reregistered as stateless during 2012, which compares to only 171 in 2011.65 In addition, since 2012, the registration of statelessness has been more accurate. The data provided by Statistics Denmark can be broken down according to origin, age, country of origin, civil status, gender and regional distribution. These categories will provide an insight into the profile of stateless persons with residence rights in Denmark. Origin of stateless persons As illustrated in Figure 2 below, the vast majority (92.7 percent) of stateless persons registered in the CPR system are immigrants (7,218 persons).66 Moreover, 561 of the stateless persons are descendants of immigrants (7.2 percent),67 whereas only five persons are of Danish origin (0.1 percent). Among the persons registered as having an unknown nationality, there are 43 immigrants (74 percent), six descendants of immigrants (10 percent) and nine persons of Danish origin (16 percent).68 Figure 2: Origin of stateless persons in Denmark in 2017 Immigrants Descendants Persons of Danish origin Total Stateless Unknown nationality 7,218 43 561 6 5 9 7,784 58 Source: SD (Quarterly Population Statistics (FOLK1), Recorded 3rd quarter of 2017) 65 Personal communication of the author with the Danish Immigration Service (email dated 9 March 2015). 66 Statistics Denmark defines an immigrant as ‘a person born abroad whose parents are both (or one of them if there is no available information on the other parent) foreign nationals or were both born abroad. If there is no available information on either of the parents and the person was born abroad, the person is also defined as an immigrant’. Definition obtained from Statistics Denmark, ‘Quality Declaration for Immigrants and Descendants 1 January 2014’, available at: https://bit.ly/39wZJOp. 67 Statistics Denmark defines a descendant of immigrants as ‘a person born in Denmark whose parents (or one of them if there is no information on the other parent) are either immigrants or descendants with foreign nationality. If there is no available information on either of the parents and the person in question is a foreign national, the person is also defined as a descendant’. Ibid. See Section 4.2.1.1 for a discussion of the laws governing how children born stateless in Denmark can be naturalized. 68 An example of a stateless person of Danish origin is a girl born to a British mother and a Danish father. In her childhood, she was considered a Danish national and received a Danish passport, but when she turned 18 years old, it was discovered that since she had been born out of wedlock before 1999, and thus before Danish unmarried fathers could pass on their nationality to their children born abroad. For that reason, she was not Danish; her one-time Danish nationality was deemed void. She could not acquire British nationality from her British national mother, who had been born abroad and resided abroad and thus could not transmit her British nationality to her daughter. Because of this conflict-of-laws gap, the daughter was stateless – until she was granted Danish nationality by naturalization. UNHCR Representation for the Nordic and Baltic Countries 19