Protests as newborn removed from Greenlandic mother after ‘parenting competence’ tests

[RogerFeather]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/23/protests-as-newborn-removed-from-greenlandic-mother-after-parenting-competence-tests

WTAF

Sounds like the authorities didn't get very good legal advice!

I heard about this last year and how it disproportionately affected Greenlanders due to their cultural differences in baby rearing. How can it still be going on in 2025? It is absolutely insane.

Tbh I've often though people should have to pass a competency test before procreating.

What sort of cultural differences?

If they're ones that are shown to harm children and limit their life experiences then those cultural differences are simply bad parenting.

Its like here when we're faced with what is viewed as physical abuse of children and someone says 'well its my culture' and is not abusive.

I dont know the ins and outs of this specific issue but this is a general point about what is termed cultural differences in parenting.

So have I, though it does sound like this case isn’t right, but further information needed - what’s the content of the test?

www.arctictoday.com/a-view-from-greenland-about-forced-child-removal-as-greenlanders-protest-danish-welfare-services/

From the article

”These tests rely on dubious measures, such as psychological evaluations based on Rorschach inkblot tests and IQ tests conducted in Danish—a second language for most Greenlanders, with spoken varying levels of proficiency.”

Similar is happening all over the place. Stereotypes like "anyone who suffered child abuse* will automatically grow up to be an abuser", racial stereotypes, and just-so stories are being used to defend the indefensible. It's absolutely awful that local councils around Europe are being this controlling over people's family lives, and that article 8 of the human rights act has no teeth whatsoever because local authorities just counter it with "but safeguarrrrding" which is such a very handy catchphrase for them to basically do what they want and decide who makes a suitable parent.
The whole system needs an overhaul. We will look back on this period of history either with horror and shame or with wide-eyed naivety of "I just can't understand why people stopped having children in Europe, it can't be anything to do with the fact we've basically made it impossible for anyone to measure up to our standards of perfect parents".
*Defined these days by local authorities and too many people on MN as any time a child didn't have a perfect day.

You know how in some cultures they wobble the head from side to side to indicate yes, instead of nodding like we do? It's that kind of thing. In these tests they show faces and ask the parents what emotion the face is showing. Eyebrows up indicates surprised to us, but in Greenland that means yes. So they score low on emotional iq.

I should state I have skin in this game. I'm a sw in Denmark but I've never worked in children and families, so my knowledge is limited to what I learned on my course 10 years ago, and what I've heard in podcasts, read in the SW magazine.

Kvisten is an organisation that works with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. They gave a presentation at my work not so long ago. Here are their stats for survivors:
Denmark 3%
Færøerne 10 %
Greenland 33%

Every case is different. Some people break the cycle. Others do not. But statistically those who were abused are more likely to abuse.

Did the Danish government do horrible things in Greenland? Yes. The spinal campaign was horrific. Taking children away to Denmark to civilise them did a lot of harm. Does that mean we shouldn't intervene?

From reading the article in the OP i reckon the whole case is going to rest on the definition of who is Greenlandic enough to use other forms of assessment. And I haven't read the new law or that particular section, so I won't comment more on it.

Whether someone wobbles their head or shakes their head is not a cultural difference in parenting though is it. Otherwise scores of South east Asian children in this country would be accommodated.

Some of the questions are "what is glass made of" and "what are the big steps in Rome called". This is the parenting competency test. I'm not sure how this determines your ability to raise a child.

I'm having trouble understanding some of the background to both of the cases the Guardian links to. I think there were welfare concerns or risk of possible future neglect/abuse but that the mothers did the FKU and failed it as well as the other concerns? Denmark has a long history of reproductive abuses on Innuit women and girls as well as removing children from Greenlandic families to "civilise" them. Similar to children being removed from Indigenous parents in Canada, Australia and the US to be placed with white "civilised" families or in group homes.

In one case the mother is 18, has Greenlandic birth parents, her adoptive mother is half Greenlandic and her adoptive father sexually abused her which social services have said makes her unfit to be a mother. This woman also failed the FKU which is used to determine fitness for parenting but doesn't account for things like Danish not being the parents first language as well as some element of general knowledge. As a result the parents can be deemed to have low cognitive ability.

I'm not sure what the welfare concerns are for Keira Alexandra Kronvold although she had previous children removed, it's not very clear what if any the issues were. She volunteered the information she was pregnant with her third child to try to show she was complying and her ex who is not Greenlandic won't get involved.

Well this smacks of every other controversial and ultimately unacceptable forced child removals from specific groups of people doesn't it.

You cannot in all good conscience remove a child from someone because they are a victim of trauma. These aren't 'parenting tests'.

In recent years, there have been multiple scandals about historic and more recent population-control practices that have been described by many in Greenland, including the former prime minister, as a genocide. These include the IUD scandal, in which 4,500 women and girls were fitted with contraception without their knowledge or consent between 1966 and 1970. Many of the details have only recently come to light.

Mmhmm.

Due to confidentiality we will never know really waht the concerns are or how viable they are

Regarding the comment above about article 8 rights, in the UK its the courts who make a decision about whether a child is removed, not LAs. Children are often kept within the parents care for far far longer than they should be due to courts being frightened almost of the risk of a human rights appeal by the parents. Forgetting of course about the child.

On stories like these sometimes Im reminded of how people portrayed the Constance Marten case and cries of 'they should be just left alone to live their lives'.

I hope for the baby's sake it was the right decision, no matter how painful that is for the parents. If not, then that is a travesty and hopefully this will right itself in time.

Yes not a parenting assessment at all, very strange and somewhat at odds to what I had considered I thought I knew about Denmark.

I thought they were often portrayed as the bastion of social progressiveness.

I'm not really getting this, was this baby removed from it's mother because the mother herself had experienced abuse and therefore in the eyes of the authorities they then expected she would go on to abuse her own child? I know that often abusers were themselves abused but I don't think this means that everyone who is abused will go on to be abused. Seems like massive overreach from the state unless key details have been left out.

I think asking people in the UK to comment on indigenous rights and parenting in Greenland (or anywhere) is laughable. I’ve worked in indigenous communities, and seen the harm cultural, colonialist ignorance and abuse has done. If you don’t know how western values have been used to remove indigenous children all over the world, causing immense harm, don’t comment.

Best practice is well-funded, well-resourced indigenous SS teams working alongside the national SW teams, sharing knowledge but not being bulldozed.

I found this additional detail on reddit, it appears there is a lot more to this than the article suggests involving this woman's older child.

"Reading the legal document around the parental competence testing (see here for more details), it is clear that the decision is based on not the current child alone, but stems from the woman's previous children's developmental delay.
As stated in the document, a parental competence test is only initiated if a child is found to be developmentally delayed physically or cognitively, and after a rehabilitation programme has failed. In other words, the first child, the daughter who was removed when she was 9, is the person on whose basis the competence test was initiated by originally. Additionally, the case worker and psychologist in collaboration with teachers, the child's doctor and parents would have first tried to have the child recover through an intervention programme. Only when the intervention failed, would the parental competence be called into question and an assessment deemed necessary. These steps are set out as legal requirements.
The tests administered are listed as assessing ability to understand interpersonal interactions, such as understand someone else's perspective, show empathy, display emotions and recognise emotions, be self aware of own emotions and able to direct negative emotions appropriately.
The tests are criticized for their development in Western cultural settings, but it should also be noted that this concerns a person who lives permanently in Denmark, and so does her children.
There is no doubt that people from Greenland face racism in Denmark, but it is also clear that a much more serious foundation underlies the original decision to remove her children than what is being portrayed in the media here. The Danish authorities cannot reveal these, as the children and the mother has a legal right to anonymity."

People have a lot of unjustified faith in the authorities that they follow unbiased processes when it comes to different cultures when it's been shown time and time again that that's not how it works in practice and reality.

What a load of nonsense!

I assume these tests are used as part of parenting assessments where court proceedings have been issued or there are serious concerns about the child's safety and welfare already? They sound nonsensical from my perspective as a SW in the UK but the way they are reported seems to suggest they are being indiscriminately applied to parents rather than only where there are parenting concerns?

This is a really common misconception about Denmark (and the other Scandi countries)

Yes they are high tax, high welfare countries. However they have also historically been monocultures with very strong emphasis on fitting in, which is massively valued. This easily tips over into racism.

Denmark's history in Greenland is frankly appalling. And all the Scandi countries have had issues with Children Services thinking anyone who doesn't parent in the approved Scandi way is at least wrong, at worst abusive.

Of course nobody is removing kids from loving parents because of basic cultural differences - the country would be bankrupt if they did that. Denmark is a progressive democracy, I dare say it's safe to assume that these tests form a very small part of a much bigger picture.

Children are often kept within the parents care for far far longer than they should be due to courts being frightened almost of the risk of a human rights appeal by the parents

Why do you say this? It's completely untrue

It is very much not safe to say that.

And historically, the reason so many indigenous communities are rife with abuse, suicide, addiction and trauma is exactly because white colonists removed children from loving homes because of cultural differences. Everywhere from Canada to Australia and yes, the Scandinavian countries. White hegemony caused this, it won’t solve it.

I was fortunate to be very lightly connected with a case where a mum was struggling with addiction. In white culture, her kids would have been taken and she would probably have ended up homeless. In 20 years her kids would have been in the same place. In her nation, she was taken to the healing house, her children were cared for by family members and community elders, she was healed and helped and got back with her children, watched over by those same elders. I still know her, her children are safe, loved and still with her.

There is a lot of knowledge, culture and strength in indigenous communities. If those ways are supported, if cultural needs are met, if funded healthcare within indigenous nations is prioritised, this won’t happen. Children can still be removed if it all fails, BTW, but that is more likely to be into a kinship model, with the child’s connection to land and culture still possible.

PLEASE if you are interested everyone, read, learn, listen. Don’t use your reckons to try to unpick hundreds of years of racism and culture.

The young woman in question has very open social media, where her posting history would indicate that her capability to parent well right now is questionable, for a range of reasons. Using a test which has been banned for use in Greenlanders is a clear error; wanting to establish her competency as a parent not so.