Greenlandic families living in Denmark are pressing for their children to be returned after social services removed babies and young children following detailed parental assessments known as FKUs. Critics say the tests are culturally biased and that reviews of past cases have been slow to produce results.
When Keira's daughter was born last November, she was allowed two hours with her newborn before the baby was taken into care. Keira, 39, describes the immediate aftermath: "Right when she came out, I started counting the minutes," she recalls. "I kept looking at the clock to see how long we had." She says that when her daughter Zammi was removed she sobbed and whispered "sorry" to the baby. "It felt like a part of my soul died."
Keira is among several Greenlandic parents on the Danish mainland whose children were placed in foster care after FKUs were used to judge parental competence. Her 2024 assessment, conducted while she was pregnant, concluded she did not have "sufficient parental competencies to care for the newborn independently".
FKUs are comprehensive psychological assessments used in complex welfare cases where officials believe a child may be at risk. They typically include interviews with parents and children, cognitive tasks such as recalling sequences of numbers, general knowledge questions, and personality and emotional testing. The assessments can take months to complete and are one factor among others in decisions about placing a child in care.
Parents have reported being asked general knowledge questions during evaluations. Keira says she was asked, "Who is Mother Teresa?" and "How long does it take for the sun's rays to reach the Earth?" She also describes being asked to "play with a doll" and being criticised for not making enough eye contact. Keira alleges a psychologist told her the test was "To see if you are civilised enough, if you can act like a human being."
Opponents of FKUs argue the assessments were built around Danish cultural norms and are administered in Danish rather than Kalaallisut, the mother tongue of many Greenlanders. That, they say, can create misunderstandings and disadvantaged outcomes. Greenlandic parents living in Denmark face disproportionately high rates of child removal: research from the Danish Centre for Social Research, a government-funded institute, indicates Greenlandic parents are 5.6 times more likely than Danish parents to have children taken into care.
Some psychologists defend FKUs as structured tools that can lend objectivity to decisions that might otherwise be based on anecdotal or subjective evidence. Turi Frederiksen, a senior psychologist whose team currently administers the tests, says she does not believe they are biased against Greenlanders and that, although imperfect, "they are valuable, extensive psychological tools".
By contrast, former test administrator Isak Nellemann argues the assessments lack scientific validity for predicting parenting ability and contends they are decisive in practice. He says they "are very important, about the most important thing, because when the tests are bad, in about 90% [of cases] they will lose their children".
In May, the Danish government banned the use of FKUs on Greenlandic families after longstanding criticism. The government said it intended to review about 300 cases in which Greenlandic children had been removed forcibly, including cases involving FKUs. By October, however, only 10 cases in which parenting tests had been used had been reviewed and none had resulted in children being returned, according to reporting on the review's progress.
Social affairs minister Sophie Hæstorp Andersen has said the government will not reopen cases where children have been adopted because those children are now settled with "loving and caring family" placements. Asked about the pace of the review she told reporters "it sounds slow, but we are getting started" and added that decisions to remove and adopt children are part of a "very thorough process where we look into the family's ability to take care of their child not only for a year or two, but for a long period of time".
Not all parents will be eligible for the government review. Johanne and Ulrik, whose son was adopted in 2020 after being removed following a 2019 assessment, were told their case would not be reconsidered. Johanne's 2019 FKU described her as "narcissistic" and as having "mental retardation" -- classifications she rejects. The couple say they were allowed brief weekly visits until the adoption and have not seen their son since.
Their lawyer, Jeanette Gjørret, hopes to bring the matter to the European Court of Human Rights.
Some parents have been able to reunite with children. Pilinguaq, 39, had three children placed in care in 2021 and more recently was told her youngest, placed in care aged one, had been returned after more than four years apart. She recalled receiving the news in a phone call and said: "I started crying and laughing at the same time. I couldn't believe it. I kept thinking, 'Oh my God, she's coming home.'" But she also fears the situation could be reversed: "They can take her in one hour. They can do it again."
Parents like Keira continue to fight to have children returned and to preserve cultural ties. Keira keeps cots and baby items in her apartment and is making a traditional Greenlandic wooden sleigh for her daughter's first birthday. She says, "I will not stop fighting for my children. If I don't finish this fight, it will be my children's fight in the future."
Tordis Jacobsen, a social worker team leader in Aalborg Kommune, emphasised that removing a child in Denmark is never taken lightly. She notes that safeguarding concerns often originate with schools or hospitals and that decisions to approve permanent adoption are subject to judicial approval.
The Danish government review will examine whether mistakes were made in administering FKUs to Greenlandic people. Families and advocates are watching closely for changes to practice, wider redress, and the pace at which cases are reconsidered.