Denmark: Siltanews – News Desk
Known as The Stolen Generations, Aborigine children were taken from their parents in Australia and much has been written about the disappearing children of Franco’s Spain as well as those shipped from Ireland.
It couldn’t happen today or could it, as a number of campaigners have argued for years that the treatment of parents from Greenland and the taking of their children into care is really not that dissimilar although it has been Danish Government policy.
Following years of complaints, Denmark bans tests which appear to work against children from Greenland.
Very simply, certain tests, known as parental competency tests have been considered to discriminate against Greenlanders in Denmark when considering whether children should stay with parents or removed into care.
These tests have a fancy long name, forældrekompetenceundersøgelse, but are generally known as FKU tests. It has been argued that whilst the test may be relevant to those Danish families, they do not take note of the language or culture of the Inuit people who form the main group of citizens in Greenland who have moved to the mainland.
The dissatisfaction with the FKU concept came to a head in November of last year when a woman from Greenland had her new born baby (her third) taken away from her hours after birth which prompted protests in twin capitals, Copenhagen and Nuuk.
The results of that case prompted a measured response from the Danish Government with a suggestion that local municipalities should stop using the test but there was no outright ban.
With children from Greenland families being removed five times more than those from Danish families, Denmark finally bans tests
Latest figures from 2022 compiled by the Danish Institute for Human Rights, highlight the imbalance between families from Greenland where 5.6 per cent of children with a Greenland background living in Denmark had at the time been placed into care, compared to 1 per cent of those with a Danish background.
Now the Danish Government has moved a significant step forward and has banned the FKU tests completely.