Asylum seekers with apathetic refugee children

Asylum seekers with apathetic refugee children was a medical and political debate in Sweden in 2006 concerning asylum seekers who came to Sweden with apathetic children. The period was a subject of media coverage starting in 2002, with 55 cases and in 2005, it escalated to 424 cases. The refugees were mostly from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and former Yugoslavia.

After a long heated debate, psychiatrist Thomas Jackson, the state investigation expert who held the controversial idea that the children were being abused and should be separated from their parents, was shut out of the debate. The debate ended with a more generous refugee policy that formulated a new condition for the apathetic children titled "resignation syndrome" (uppgivenhetssyndrom in Swedish). Jackson vehemently opposed this diagnosis, insisting on calling it coerced child abuse. Jackson also criticized Swedish doctors and the healthcare system for indirectly contributing to child abuse. When suspicions of manipulation or abuse were uncovered, News24 published an article in 2005 of a "child-abuse scam being uncovered in Sweden".