Greenlandic woman wins case against Danish authorities who confiscated her child

A Greenlandic woman whose newborn baby was forcibly removed by Danish authorities as a result of controversial parenting competency tests has won a landmark case in the high court ruling that their actions were illegal.

Keira Alexandra Kronvold’s daughter Zammi was taken away from her when she was two hours old and placed in foster care in November 2024 after Kronvold was subjected to so-called FKU (parental competence) psychometric tests. At the time she was told that the test was to see if she was “civilised enough”.

The Danish government abruptly banned the tests on people with Greenlandic backgrounds last May after years of criticism, and amid international pressure after Donald Trump’s threats to the former Danish colony, which remains part of the Danish kingdom.

But despite the law change, dozens of Greenlandic parents living in Denmark, including Kronvold, remain separated from their children having undergone the tests.

In Friday’s ruling, the western high court found that the removal of Zammi, now 18 months old and living with a Danish foster family, was illegal and in breach of Kronvold’s fundamental legal rights according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) Indigenous and tribal people’s convention of 1989. It also ruled that the tests used to inform the decision were outdated.

Kronvold’s lawyer, Gert Dyrn, said the ruling had “great significance”. He said: “When the state made this new law last year they recognised they were in breach of the convention on Indigenous peoples and maybe of the European convention on human rights, which – in my opinion – the ruling today confirmed. This is a major victory for the Greenlandic community in Denmark.”

Although the ruling will not directly lead to the reunification of Kronvold and her daughter, because she has since been reassessed under a new system, it marks the first time the Danish high court has ruled on the matter and is expected to have substantial repercussions for Greenlandic parents and their separated children dating back as far as 1996, when Denmark ratified the ILO convention.

Dyrn said: “There may be other women who have not been examined again according to the new law and they will probably be able to use this ruling to get their decisions nullified.”

He also said it could be used by adult Greenlandic people who were removed from their parents as children to get an apology from the Danish state or compensation.

The Danish government is under growing pressure over the tests, which are deemed to be culturally unsuitable for Greenlandic people and other minorities. Last week the Guardian learned that the United Nations had told Denmark that authorities’ treatment of Kronvold “”.