24. Unaccompanied refugee children

Last modified 18 August 2016

In 2015 more unaccompanied children than ever applied asylum in Sweden. Since the turn of the year 2015/2016, however, the number has strongly declined, mainly because of ID checks on the border between Denmark and Sweden. When children and young people under 18 unaccompanied come to Sweden to seek asylum they are protected by the UN Convention on Children's Rights. They also treated in relation to the Dublin Regulation.

2015, 35 369 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in Sweden. That's compared to about 7000 unaccompanied children seeking asylum 2014. Of the unaccompanied minors who sought asylum in 2015 were more than half Afghanistan (over 23 000). The second largest group of almost 4000 children came from Syria, followed by Somalia and Eritrea. The vast majority are boys (32 522) between 13-17 years. The number of girls was less than 3 000.

Of the total number of asylum seekers in 2015, almost 22 per cent were unaccompanied children and adolescents, compared with 8 percent of the total number of 2014.

^{Källa: https://www.migrationsinfo.se/migration/sverige/asylsokande-i-sverige/ensamkommande-barn/}