Greenlandic Mothers in Denmark Fight to Get Children Back

Bea Ferdinandsen Kaas held up her phone. The traditional Greenlandic tattoos on her fingers fanned out around the image of a child: her granddaughter.

She’s fighting to be able to raise the young girl, who she says was taken from her daughter by the police and a social worker soon after her birth in early 2025.

“I will always be hopeful, always. But I also know they already got her,” Kaas told The Epoch Times.

She choked up. Kaas—far from the granddaughter she loves—began to weep.

The story is the same all over Denmark: although a controversial test of Greenlandic parents’ competency has ended, families remain separated from children who have entered foster care.

Some mothers, like Gudrun Qunerseeq Maratse, are still losing their kids to a multilayered system they see as opaque and unfriendly.

“I miss my boy,” she told The Epoch Times in a text message after the infant was taken from her.

The old test lasted 15–20 hours and included cognitive questions, in-depth interviews, and personality tests. Some psychological questions came under fire for what psychologist Karen Littauer describes as cultural bias against Greenlanders.

She rejects parenting tests altogether, telling The Epoch Times, “There are different ways to be a good parent.”

That old system has effectively been replaced by a unit within Denmark’s National Knowledge and Special Counseling Organization, or VISO.

Cases from the era of the old test are being reviewed, but it’s slow going.

Meanwhile, international authorities have started to examine what’s happening.

In March, human rights experts associated with the United Nations wrote to Denmark about the case of Keira Kronvold, a Greenlandic mother who ultimately lost three of her children.

They voiced worries about the specialized unit for Greenlanders that has replaced the test, noting that its decisions cannot be appealed. They also sought more detail on the review of cases such as Kronvold’s from before the test was eliminated.

Greenlandic mothers, they wrote, “have expressed fear that children may lose language and identity.”

That’s what Qupalu Nuku Platou said happened to her two boys. She lost them almost a decade ago.

“I’m tired,” she told The Epoch Times, “but I keep fighting.”

The scrutiny of cases like Platou’s comes against the backdrop of U.S. President Donald Trump’s interest in acquiring Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory.

Greenlander Jorgen Boassen, a Trump ally who just visited the territory with U.S. Special Envoy Jeff Landry, told The Epoch Times he hopes the president will do something about the Greenlandic mothers’ cases.

—Nathan Worcester

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