People of Greenland are protesting the forced removal of their children
In cases of forced removals of children, Danish authorities do not sufficiently consider how culturally different the people of Greenland are. Polar Journal AG spoke to a Greenlandic parent, legal expert, and protester about the issue.
On November 9th, November 20th and again on December 10th, a series of quiet but determined protests were staged. They took place in Copenhagen, Reykjavik, Nuuk, Ilulissat, and in towns and settlements across Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat).
The protests were aimed at the Danish state and its tendency to overlook cultural differences in child welfare cases involving Greenlandic people living in Denmark. Or as the protesters succinctly put it in a Facebook reel while calling for more protests:
“Five to six times more Inuit children are placed in out of home care compared to Danish children. They are often placed in Danish homes with minimum contact to their Inuit parents. This means they lose their culture, their language, and their identity. This is an attack on Inuit rights.”
And that this practice is a violation of their rights is not an empty claim. The UN Special Rapporteur for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, José Francisco Calí Tzay, is backing them up. In a report from September 2023, he had this, and much else, to say:
“Information received by the Special Rapporteur from several sources indicates that biases against Inuit parents have resulted in their being wrongly assessed as having cognitive disabilities.”
The current protests were sparked by a concrete case from northwestern Denmark. But, according to Pernille Benjaminsen, a Greenlandic parent and legal expert, they are also the result of decades of pent up frustration.
“I don’t know the woman in the recent case personally. The protests are not only rooted in her case but also in an extreme sorrow and frustration that throughout our whole lives, we feel that we have been treated badly and have been discriminated against,” she told Polar Journal AG.
“I am also a mother, and the thought of having my newborn child taken away because of a misunderstanding is heartbreaking. It’s unbearable. But, unfortunately, because of the experiences many of us have had with the Danish system, it is not at all unbelievable that this could happen,” she said.
Parenting competency tests
The case that sparked the recent protests involved a woman named Keira Alexandra Kronvold who had her child removed two hours and fifteen minutes after giving birth. The decision was made by Thisted Kommune, a municipality in northwestern Denmark, and their decision drew on a so-called “parenting competency test”.
These tests attempt to assess, through a series of questions, if expecting women or couples are ready to become parents. The tests have been heavily criticized by Greenlandic campaigners for several reasons. Here are three of them, as laid out by Pernille Benjaminsen:
- The tests can be difficult to understand for Greenlandic parents who do not speak Danish as a first language.
- Greenlandic culture has different values when it comes to child-rearing. It has a more ‘hands-off’ approach focusing on the needs of the child. In Denmark, according to Pernille Benjaminsen, the focus is more on performance and living up to expected developmental steps at each given age.
- Greenlandic people communicate in vastly different ways than Danes, and these differences can lead to misinterpretations by the social workers conducting the tests.
The last point in particular can be difficult to get through. Few Danish people are even aware that these differences exist, according to Pernille Benjaminsen.
“Danish culture and Greenlandic culture could not be more different than they are. In Greenland, we are completely aware of this because we run into it all the time. But in Denmark, there is no awareness of this at all. They are fooled because we speak Danish and because, through the years, we have been so good at adapting,” she said.
And in Keira Alexandra Kronvold’s case such cultural differences do, indeed, appear to have played an important role. In their justification for taking away her child, the municipality wrote:
“Keira draws on her Greenlandic background, where even small facial expressions carry communicative significance. However, as the child is to grow up in Denmark, it is assessed that Keira will have difficulty preparing the child for the social expectations and norms necessary to navigate Danish society.”
Communicating without words
To explain how different the two cultures are, Pernille Benjaminsen mentions the importance of non-verbal communication. In Inuit culture, as an example, facial expressions are a vital form of communication but in Denmark it barely exists at all.
If, for example, a Greenlandic person wants to say ‘yes’ to something, they will raise their eyebrows rather than expressing anything verbally, and if they want to say ‘no’, they will wrinkle their nose.
And when Kalaallit Inuit pass each other on the street, they will nod and lift their eyebrows, still without words, and when someone is giving a speech or a lecture, the Greenlandic audience will be fully engaged, signaling through facial expressions that they are listening.
“When I speak in front of Danish audiences, it feels like everyone has ‘stone faces’. This makes me flustered and it makes me think they are not interested at all. Only once my talk is over, will they come up to me and say that it was great, and I will realize that they actually did listen,” she said.
Pernille Benjaminsen understands both Danish and Greenlandic culture deeply. She was born and raised in Greenland but lived for several years in Denmark as a student. Moreover, her mother is Greenlandic but her father is Danish so growing up, she often experienced the differences first hand.
“My dad would often say something to my brother and me without looking at us. We would then reply with our facial expressions but he wouldn’t notice and then he would get annoyed that we weren’t replying,” she explained.
Cultural misunderstandings at political level
In an international context, cultural misunderstandings like this can seem charming and innocent; the cause of friendly banter and hearty laughs. But, in the case of Danish-Greenlandic relations and the ‘parenting competency tests’ more specifically, their consequences can be profoundly serious.
As a consequence, Greenland has urged Danish authorities to put a stop to their use in cases involving Greenlandic people. The calls have happened on many fronts: through protests and activism, through the Greenlandic members of the Danish parliament, and through direct contact between the Danish and Greenlandic governments.
As a response the Danish government allotted DKK 7.8 million (around one million euros) from 2023 to 2025 to phase out the tests. But as Keira Alexandra Kronvold’s case shows, the tests are still used by social workers around Denmark.
The reason Thisted Kommune is still using it as a lack of alternatives methods of accessing parent competency, they stated in November.
But another reason that the phasing out of the tests has not gone smoothly could be cultural misunderstandings at a governmental level. Pernille Benjaminsen, at least, points to a recent example that shows that the even top politicians in the two countries sometimes misunderstand each other.
In a November 15th press release by the Government of Greenland, Minister of Children and Young People, Aqqaluaq B. Egede, announced that he had received a promise from Denmark that the tests would no longer be used. The Danish Minister of Social Affairs, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, however, announced something slightly different. She said that she ‘urges municipalities to stop using the tests’; not a ban but a recommendation.
“It leaves me thinking that communications went wrong between the two ministers. Was it something cultural, was it a matter of language, or was there a different understanding of what a promise means? I am not sure,” Pernille Benjaminsen said.
“But I find it highly interesting that these misunderstandings can happen even between our politicians,” she said.
A new travel unit
No matter the political misunderstandings, however, some common ground seems to have been found. As a result of the protests, positive changes may be on the way.
In Denmark’s budget for 2025, which was announced at the end of November, the forced removals are addressed. In the budget, DKK 8 million (around 1.1 million euros) will be allotted to a ‘travel unit’ that will secure the legal rights of Kalaallit Inuit in Denmark.
Once established, the unit will consist of legal experts with knowledge of Greenlandic culture, and it will travel around Denmark when called upon by municipalities. Such a unit was also Pernille Benjaminsen’s number one recommendation for how to solve the issue of unfair removals.
“It isn’t realistic to expect all municipalities in Denmark to be prepared to understand Greenlandic culture. So a team of experts like this makes a lot of sense,” she said.
With this news in mind, she hopes that the forced removals will come to an end. But for now, she and her fellow protesters will continue to show their defiance and sorrow in their own unassuming way. Even in the protests, she noticed a difference to how they would be in Denmark.
“Our demonstrations have been very quiet compared to other demonstrations we see in the news around the world, and a lot was even said in a non-verbal way. That tells you a lot about who we are as a people,” she said.
“I felt a deep sorrow among the protesters. We all have a long list of experiences of cultural misunderstandings, so it touches us deeply when the misunderstandings have such heartbreaking consequences,” she said.
Ole Ellekrog, Polar Journal AG
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