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Denmark has announced it is abandoning the use of highly controversial “parenting competency” tests on Greenlandic families, amid fury over the way that they have been routinely used on people with Inuit backgrounds, often resulting in the separation of children from their parents.
Campaigners have been warning about the discriminatory impact of the psychometric tests used in Danish child protection investigations – known as FKU (forældrekompetenceundersøgelse) – for years. Human rights bodies have long criticised them as being culturally unsuitable for Greenlandic people and other minorities living in Denmark, which once ruled the Arctic island as a colony and continues to control its foreign and security policy.
After weeks of heightened tensions between Copenhagen and Nuuk sparked by Donald Trump’s vow to acquire the autonomous territory for the US, the Danish government has announced it has agreed to end the use of standardised psychological tests in child cases involving families with a Greenlandic background.
“Doubts have been raised as to whether a standardised psychological test sufficiently takes into account the Greenlandic culture and language,” it said. “Therefore, the [Danish] government and the Greenlandic government have agreed to abolish the use of standardised psychological tests in child cases with families of Greenlandic background when assessing parental competence.”
The statement marks a significant U-turn in policy on the tests, which were the subject of renewed focus at the end of last year after the highly publicised case of Keira Alexandra Kronvold, whose separation from her child just two hours after giving birth in November elicited widespread outrage and a series of ongoing protests in Copenhagen and Nuuk.
Then, the Danish minister of social affairs and housing, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, stopped short of a ban, instead calling only for municipalities to “consider stopping the use of the criticised tests”.
Last week, however, she said the Danish government had listened to the “serious concerns” raised about the tests, and had come up with an alternative in the form of a special unit with Greenlandic cultural expertise which will “in future assist municipalities” in such cases.
The Danish Institute for Human Rights said in 2022 that, as the tests had not been adapted to take cultural differences into account, Greenlandic parents ran “the risk of obtaining low test scores, so that it is concluded, for example, that they have reduced cognitive abilities, without there being actual evidence for this.
“Such potential misjudgements can have far-reaching consequences for both children and parents, as in the extreme they can contribute to the forced removal of a child.”
Louise Holck, the director of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, said on Monday she welcomed the decision to scrap them, adding: “These tests fail to account for language barriers and cultural differences, risking unfair assessments of Greenlandic parents.”
Others questioned the timing, which comes soon after Trump declared that acquiring Greenland would be an “absolute necessity” for the US, and his son Donald Trump Jr made a flying visit to the territory.
Aka Hansen, an Inuit film-maker who has been organising the protests, said: “It’s a big surprise to us that all of a sudden they are able to make changes to the law. It’s long overdue and we need to make sure each and every case will be re-evaluated by an Inuit team, to make sure our children get a fair chance.”
She questioned whether the announcement would even have been made had it not been for Trump Jr’s visit, adding: “I am afraid nothing would have happened, had he not been here.”
Since Trump’s advances, Copenhagen has gone into diplomacy overdrive in Washington and has rapidly changed its tone on Greenland.
In a televised debate on Sunday night, broadcast in both Denmark and Greenland, Múte Egede, the Greenlandic prime minister, said the autonomous territory had “had enough” of being told it should be grateful to Copenhagen for being “good colonial masters”. If Denmark had behaved better towards Greenlanders, he added, perhaps they would not be debating the island’s future.
In response to the announcement about the parenting tests being scrapped, Aqqaluaq B Egede, the Greenlandic minister for children, youth, education, culture, sports and church, said: “I am very pleased that the Danish government agrees with Naalakkersuisut [the Greenlandic government] to meet a heartfelt wish from Naalakkersuisut and the Greenlandic population. It has been a long-term process to achieve our goal of stopping the use of psychological tests in parental competence examinations of Greenlandic families in Denmark.”
He also said that the Danish government had agreed to reassess cases where psychological tests may have led to the wrongful placement of Greenlandic children.
In her statement, Hæstorp Andersen said: “A child being removed from home is one of the most intrusive things that can happen to a family. The government of Greenland has raised serious concerns about the approach to children’s cases involving families with a Greenlandic background.
“We in the government have listened to this concern. We have now found a good and common solution, where we replace the use of standardised psychological tests with a special unit that has expertise in the Greenlandic language and culture. It is my hope that the solution will give Greenlanders in Denmark peace and security back.”
The government said that a bill would be submitted “as soon as possible” and planned to bring the new law into force “no later than 1 May 2025”.
