Denmark to ditch ‘parenting competency’ tests for Greenlandic families
Denmark has announced it is abandoning the use of highly controversial “parenting competency” tests on Greenlandic families, amid fury over the way that they have been routinely used on people with Inuit backgrounds, often resulting in the separation of children from their parents.
Campaigners have been warning about the discriminatory impact of the psychometric tests used in Danish child protection investigations – known as FKU (forældrekompetenceundersøgelse) – for years. Human rights bodies have long criticised them as being culturally unsuitable for Greenlandic people and other minorities living in Denmark, which once ruled the Arctic island as a colony and continues to control its foreign and security policy.
After weeks of heightened tensions between Copenhagen and Nuuk sparked by Donald Trump’s vow to acquire the autonomous territory for the US, the Danish government has announced it has agreed to end the use of standardised psychological tests in child cases involving families with a Greenlandic background.
“Doubts have been raised as to whether a standardised psychological test sufficiently takes into account the Greenlandic culture and language,” it said. “Therefore, the [Danish] government and the Greenlandic government have agreed to abolish the use of standardised psychological tests in child cases with families of Greenlandic background when assessing parental competence.”
