While the requirement to hold a permanent residence permit would constitute an obstacle for some of
these children, it should be recalled that, until July 2016 when the Temporary Law entered into force,222
persons granted refugee status or subsidiary protection were, as a general rule, granted permanent
residence permits. As indicated in Table 8 above, most stateless persons granted residence permits in 2015
were so granted on refugee or subsidiary protection grounds.
It is also interesting to note that the number of stateless children born in Sweden drops so drastically from
the age group 0-4 years to the age group 5-11 years, at the same time as the number of notifications of
children below 5 years (which was the rule prior to the amendment that entered into force in April 2015)
pursuant to Section 6 have remained relatively low over the years.
Table 10 shows the number of notifications submitted pursuant to Section 6 of the Act on Swedish
Citizenship in respect of children born stateless in Sweden, during the years 2009 to 2015.
Table 10: Acquisition of Swedish nationality by stateless children, by notification pursuant to Section 6 of
the Act on Swedish Citizenship, during the years 2009 to 2015223
Notifications, Section 6
Year
Notifications
Decisions
Grants
Grant percentage
2009
195
197
110
56
2010
232
228
177
78
2011
267
209
135
65
2012
232
218
122
56
2013
198
263
155
59
2014
389
334
218
65
2015
588
541
275
51
Between the years 2009 to 2013, the number of notifications submitted under Section 6 remained
steady, varying between 195 and 267, though the percentage of grants differed. In 2014, the number of
notifications submitted rose significantly, and then rose again sharply in 2015. The reason could have been
due to the increase of the number of children born stateless in Sweden in 2013-2015, as seen in Table 9.
Nonetheless, the number of notifications submitted remains relatively low, compared to the number of
children born stateless in Sweden. For example, in 2011, 2,172 children between 0-4 years were registered
as stateless, while only 267 notifications for acquisition of citizenship were submitted that year. In 2014,
when the number of notifications submitted increased sharply, to 389, the number of children between 0-4
years registered as stateless had also increased, to 3,389. Last year, in 2015, 2,953 children between 0-4
years were registered as stateless, while 588 notifications were submitted, and 275 granted citizenship. The
proportion of notifications leading to the granting of nationality for these children has ranged between 56
and 78 per cent.
UNHCR has not been able, within the scope of this research, to gather any information on the most common
grounds for rejection of notifications.
64
222
Lag om tillfälliga begränsningar av möjligheten att få uppehållstillstånd i Sverige (2016: 752), entered into force 20 July 2017, available
at: https://goo.gl/4F4PpA.
223
Data received from SMA, 21 December 2016.
M A P P I N G S TAT E L E S S N E S S I N S W E D E N