News that shocks us typically comes from the third world or countries ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. But what’s happening in the progressive Western world?
News from Denmark tells us the country conducts parental competency tests. If you’re deemed unfit to raise children, state services take them away.
These tests, though tailored to Danish living conditions and culture, are also applied to Greenland’s indigenous people, the Inuit, putting them at a disadvantage, along with other minorities, as linguistic and cultural barriers aren’t taken into account.
According to a related report, 5.6% of children of Greenlandic origin are placed in care, compared to 1% of Danish children.
One woman, Keira Alexandra Kronvold, of Greenlandic origin, reported that her child was taken away just hours after birth. It was her third child, and ten years earlier, when she underwent diagnostic tests, she was deemed unfit for motherhood.
Now she can see her baby for just one hour a week, under social worker supervision. She claims the system judges her worth as a mother through a “fanatical cultural lens”.
This case, which isn’t unique, has sparked a storm of protests. Activists argue that Denmark isn’t protecting the rights of Greenlandic families, leading to unjustified adoptions and parent-child alienation.
The treatment of Inuit Eskimos by dominant Denmark isn’t new.
Last year, 67 women reported that when they were young, or even teenagers, IUDs were inserted without their consent or knowledge, aiming to prevent them from having children.
An investigation into this complaint is ongoing and expected to conclude next year.
But this wasn’t Denmark’s first or last social experiment from that era. In 1951, 22 Inuit children, aged 6-10, were removed from their families with parental consent, for an integration experiment aimed at creating a new type of Greenlander.
Six adapted and were adopted, while the rest were sent back. But things weren’t the same.
Suddenly they belonged nowhere. They were placed in a boarding school and gradually cut off completely from their roots. Some ended up homeless, others became alcoholics, and most died young.
The savagery of the world through a Western prism, with glossy wrapping.