The Danish authorities have not yet commented on the subject matter of the allegation. Last year, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen formally apologized on behalf of the Danish state for the damage done to Greenland society.
– We cannot change what has already happened, but we can take responsibility and apologize to those we should have taken care of and we did not, said the then prime minister.
Children’s experience
In the early 1950s, a group of teachers and priests were asked to select Inuit children who could participate in an experiment to re-educate them, “live better” in Denmark and return to Greenland as “good role models,” the British station writes. In May 1951, the MS Disko left the island’s capital, Nuuk, with 22 children on board.
Upon their arrival, the children were denied contact with their relatives and placed in foster families.
Helen Thiessen, part of the group of children taken from their families and one of the applicants, told the BBC in 2015 that “an apology means a lot”. A 7-year-old woman at the time of the separation from her relatives recalls hearing about her mother, a single widow with three children, that “Denmark is heaven” and “there is no need to grieve” over the separation.
It wasn’t until 1996 that Thiessen discovered why she was moved from her home community in Greenland to a foster family on mainland Denmark. She never succeeded in rebuilding her relationship with her mother and siblings.
Greenland is an autonomous region based on Denmark. Of the more than 56 thousand residents of the island, about 89 percent. They are the Inuit.
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