BBC
Keira says she sobbed uncontrollably when her child was taken away from her
When Keira’s daughter was born final November, she was given two hours together with her earlier than the newborn was taken into care.
“Proper when she got here out, I began counting the minutes,” Keira, 39, recollects.
“I stored wanting on the clock to see how lengthy we had.”
When the second got here for Zammi to be taken from her arms, Keira says she sobbed uncontrollably, whispering “sorry” to her child.
“It felt like part of my soul died.”
Now Keira is one in all many Greenlandic households residing on the Danish mainland who’re combating to get their youngsters returned to them after they had been eliminated by social companies.
In such instances, infants and kids had been taken away after parental competency checks – identified in Denmark as FKUs – had been used to assist assess whether or not they had been match to be dad and mom.
In Could this yr the Danish authorities banned using these checks on Greenlandic households after a long time of criticism, though they proceed for use on different households in Denmark.
The assessments, which normally take months to finish, are utilized in advanced welfare instances the place authorities imagine youngsters are vulnerable to neglect or hurt.
Keira says she was “counting the minutes” from the second Zammi was born, figuring out she solely had two hours together with her daughter
They embrace interviews with dad and mom and kids, a spread of cognitive duties, equivalent to recalling a sequence of numbers backwards, normal data quizzes, and persona and emotional testing.
Defenders of the checks say they provide a extra goal technique of evaluation than the possibly anecdotal and subjective proof of social employees and different consultants.
However critics say they can’t meaningfully predict whether or not somebody will make a superb father or mother.
Opponents have additionally lengthy argued that they’re designed round Danish cultural norms and level out they’re administered in Danish, quite than Kalaallisut, the mom tongue of most Greenlanders.
This could result in misunderstandings, they are saying.
Greenlanders are Danish residents, enabling them to dwell and work on the mainland.
Hundreds dwell in Denmark, drawn by its employment alternatives, training and healthcare, amongst different causes.
Greenlandic dad and mom in Denmark are 5.6 occasions extra more likely to have youngsters taken into care than Danish dad and mom, based on the Danish Centre for Social Analysis, a government-funded analysis institute.
In Could, the federal government mentioned it hoped in the end to assessment round 300 instances – together with ones involving FKU checks – through which Greenlandic youngsters had been forcibly faraway from their households.
However as of October, the BBC discovered that simply 10 instances the place parenting checks had been used had been reviewed by the federal government – and no Greenlandic youngsters had been returned in consequence.
Keira’s evaluation in 2024, carried out when she was pregnant, concluded that she didn’t have “adequate parental competencies to take care of the new child independently”.
Keira says the questions she was requested included: “Who’s Mom Teresa?” and “How lengthy does it take for the solar’s rays to achieve the Earth?”
Keira nonetheless retains a cot beside her mattress and one other in the lounge of her residence, together with child garments and nappies
Psychologists who defend the checks argue questions like these are supposed to evaluate dad and mom’ normal data and their understanding of ideas they may encounter in society.
Keira provides that “they made me play with a doll and criticised me for not making sufficient eye contact”.
She alleges that when she requested why she was being examined on this means the psychologist advised her: “To see if you’re civilised sufficient, for those who can act like a human being.”
The native authority in Keira’s case mentioned it couldn’t touch upon particular person households, including that choices to position a baby in care had been made when there was severe concern concerning the “kid’s well being, growth, and well-being”.
In 2014, Keira’s different two youngsters – who had been then aged 9 years and eight months – had been positioned into care after an FKU check on the time concluded her parenting expertise weren’t growing quick sufficient to fulfill their wants.
Her eldest, Zoe, who’s now 21, moved again residence when she was 18 and presently lives in her personal residence and sees her mum often.
Keira hopes she’s going to quickly be reunited together with her child Zammi completely.
The Danish authorities has mentioned its assessment will take a look at whether or not errors had been made within the administering of FKU checks on Greenlandic individuals.
Within the meantime, Keira is allowed to see Zammi, who’s in foster care, as soon as per week for an hour.
Every time she visits, she takes flowers and typically Greenlandic meals, equivalent to hen coronary heart soup.
“Simply so just a little a part of her tradition might be together with her,” she says.
Ulrik and Johanne hope the Danish authorities will rethink reviewing instances like theirs the place a baby has been adopted
However not all Greenlandic dad and mom who had youngsters taken into care after finishing FKUs could have their instances reviewed.
Johanne and Ulrik’s son was adopted in 2020 and the Danish authorities has mentioned it is not going to assessment instances the place youngsters have been adopted.
Johanne, 43, was examined in 2019 throughout being pregnant.
Like Zammi, her son was meant to have been taken away instantly after start.
However as a result of he was born prematurely on Boxing Day and social employees had been on vacation, she and her husband Ulrik acquired to maintain him for 17 days.
“It was the happiest time of my life as a father,” says Ulrik, 57.
“Being with my son, holding him, altering his nappy, ensuring that Johanne pumps her milk earlier than going to mattress within the night.”
Then sooner or later, two social employees and two cops arrived at Johanne and Ulrik’s residence to take their son away.
The couple say they pleaded with them to not take him.
Johanne requested if she might breastfeed him one final time.
“As I used to be dressing my son at hand him over to his foster dad and mom who had been on their means, I felt probably the most horrific heartbreak,” Ulrik says.
Johanne had been examined after two youngsters from one other relationship, who had been 5 and 6, had been taken into care after FKU testing in 2010.
Her 2019 evaluation describes her as “narcissistic” and as having “psychological retardation” – a categorisation primarily based on designations developed by the WHO which had been in use on the time.
She rejects each of those descriptions of her.
Getty Pictures
A protester carries a placard that reads: “Our youngsters are watching!! Prejudices are contagious,” throughout an illustration in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, earlier this yr
In concept, there isn’t a cross or fail mark for an FKU and they’re one issue amongst others considered by native authorities who resolve whether or not to position a baby into care.
However psychologist Isak Nellemann, who used to manage the checks, says in apply they “are crucial, about a very powerful factor, as a result of when the checks are dangerous, in about 90% (of instances) they may lose their youngsters”.
Nelleman argues a few of the checks lack scientific validity and had been developed to review persona traits quite than predict parenting means.
Nonetheless, Turi Frederiksen, a senior psychologist whose crew presently administers the checks, defends them, saying that whereas they don’t seem to be good, “they’re precious, intensive psychological instruments”.
She additionally says she doesn’t imagine they’re biased in opposition to Greenlanders.
When Johanne was requested in 2019 what she noticed throughout a Rorschach check – a psychological check the place persons are requested what they see when ink-blot photos – she mentioned she noticed a girl gutting a seal, a well-known sight in Greenland’s searching tradition.
Johanne alleges that on listening to this reply the psychologist referred to as her a “barbarian”.
The native council concerned within the couple’s 2019 evaluation didn’t handle Johanne’s declare immediately.
They mentioned her evaluation “indicated vital concern concerning the dad and mom’ total parenting talents” in addition to “issues concerning the dad and mom’ normal way of life and useful degree in day by day life”.
Social employee Tordis Jacobsen mentioned the choice to position a baby into care in Denmark was by no means taken evenly
After Johanne and Ulrik’s son was taken into care, they had been allowed to see him throughout temporary, weekly visits till he was adopted in 2020.
They’ve by no means seen him since.
“I by no means acquired to see his first steps, his first phrase, his first tooth, his first faculty day,” Johanne says.
Nonetheless, a couple of days after his start they christened him, creating an official document that features their names and handle.
“We wanted to create a paper path so he might discover his means again to us,” Johanne says.
Their lawyer Jeanette Gjørret hopes to take their case earlier than the European Courtroom of Human Rights.
However Denmark’s social affairs minister Sophie Hæstorp Andersen tells the BBC the federal government is not going to reopen instances of adoption as a result of every of those youngsters is now settled with a “loving and caring household”.
Requested concerning the progress of the assessment, she says “it sounds sluggish, however we’re getting began”.
She additionally says choices to take away and undertake youngsters are a part of a “very thorough course of the place we glance into the household’s means to care for their baby not just for a yr or two, however for a protracted time frame”.
That’s echoed by Tordis Jacobsen, a social employee crew chief in Aalborg Kommune in northern Denmark, who says eradicating a baby in Denmark isn’t taken evenly.
She says safeguarding issues are sometimes first flagged by colleges or hospitals, and factors out that in instances the place a baby is completely adopted the choice to approve that is made by a decide.
Pilunnguaq’s daughter, six, was returned to her a number of months in the past, greater than 4 years after being positioned into care
Pilunnguaq is a uncommon case of a Greenlandic mom who has been reunited together with her baby.
She and her daughter, who was positioned into care aged one, had been reunited a couple of months in the past. Her daughter is now six.
Pilunnguaq, 39, says she obtained the surprising information in a telephone name from social companies.
“I began crying and laughing on the similar time. I could not imagine it. I stored pondering, ‘Oh my God, she’s coming residence.'”
Pilunnguaq’s three youngsters had been all positioned into care in 2021. The opposite two had been aged six and 9 on the time.
She says she agreed for her native authority to position her youngsters in non permanent care whereas she discovered a brand new residence appropriate for her youngsters.
Pilunnguaq says she believed her youngsters would quickly be returned to her, however as an alternative she needed to bear a parenting evaluation.
This concluded she had a sample of coming into “dysfunctional relationships” and was unfit to father or mother.
A couple of months after her six-year-old daughter got here residence, Pilunnguaq was advised by her native authority that her different two older youngsters shall be returning to her in December.
The choice to return the youngsters into Pilunnguaq’s care was made by the native authority quite than being really useful by the federal government assessment. The native authority declined to touch upon her case.
Spending greater than 4 years aside has made it troublesome for Pilunnguaq to rebuild her relationship together with her daughter.
“If I am going to the toilet and shut the door, she could have a panic assault and say ‘Mum, I could not discover you,'” Pilunnguaq says.
She additionally says she is frightened of dropping her daughter once more.
“They will take her in a single hour. They will do it once more.”
Keira has been making her daughter Zammi a picket sleigh for her first birthday
Keira is now getting ready for Zammi’s first birthday in her absence.
She’s constructing a standard Greenlandic sleigh by hand from wooden, with a polar bear drawn on the entrance.
Earlier this month, she was advised that her daughter will not be coming residence – for now at the least – however she hasn’t given up hope.
Keira nonetheless has a cot subsequent to her mattress and one other in the lounge, with framed images of Zammi on the partitions, together with child garments and nappies.
“I can’t cease combating for my youngsters.
“If I do not end this combat, it is going to be my youngsters’s combat sooner or later.”
That is a part of the International Ladies collection from the BBC World Service, sharing untold and necessary tales from across the globe
