Ivana Bronlund is getting her baby back.
Bronlund, a young Greenlandic woman, found herself thrust into the spotlight after authorities in her small Danish town forced her to give up her infant daughter an hour after she was born. It was the result of a complicated parenting evaluation that officials had admitted was flawed, and her case quickly flared into another sore spot between Denmark and Greenland, which is a Danish overseas territory.
On Monday, a national appeals board reversed the decision made by local officials in the municipality outside of Copenhagen, Denmark, where Bronlund lives.
The decision was spare on details, citing the privacy of those involved, but the headline on a notice published on Monday evening was: “The Danish National Appeals Board is reversing the decision.”
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Bronlund, who is 18, had been fighting hard for the custody of her daughter, who was born August 11th. That day, an hour after birth, municipal authorities took the baby away and put her in foster care.
On Monday, Bronlund posted a short statement on Instagram, saying: “My heart is whole again.”
Just about any issue connected to Greenland has become a hot subject in Denmark as the Danes try to fend off insistence by president Donald Trump that the United States take it over.
Denmark colonised Greenland, a gigantic island high up in the Arctic Sea, more than 300 years ago. Though it is no longer a colony – the Danes have granted it a large degree of autonomy – many Greenlanders still feel resentment about the colonial past and the years of discrimination that followed.
Small protests broke out over this case, and Monday, activists celebrated Bronlund’s victory.
“It’s wild that it had to go this far,” said Najannguaq Hegelund, vice chair of Sila 360, an indigenous rights group in Denmark. “We are of course happy for Ivana and her family, but there are many other cases with the same flaws.”
Bronlund had been subjected to the full parenting evaluation process, which included interviews with psychologists, meetings with social workers, standardised psychological evaluations and IQ tests that measured her ability to manipulate shapes and do math problems, which she says she was never good at.
Authorities then ruled that she was “not able to ensure her child’s wellbeing and development” and that she had “a great need for extensive psychiatric and social support”, which her family believed was an unfair conclusion that was based on sexual abuse that Bronlund suffered as a child.
Where authorities misstepped, according to documents and experts who analysed her case, was applying standardised tests to her. Greenlanders living in Denmark have been complaining for years about these tests, arguing that they are biased and citing studies that show how poorly Greenlanders do on them. According to a recent study, Greenlandic children born in Denmark are five times more likely to be taken away from their parents than other children in Denmark.
In May, the Danish government put a new rule into force saying that standardised psychological tests should no longer be used when evaluating Greenlandic parents. Authorities across Denmark use these evaluations, but they are not applied to the entire population – only to families about which there are already welfare concerns. Denmark has recently strengthened child protection laws and as a result made it easier for the state to override parents and even remove a child from their home.
[ An hour after giving birth in Denmark, the government took her babyOpens in new window ]
Members of Denmark’s Greenlandic community estimate that there are at least 15,000 people who identify as Greenlandic living in Denmark, and from now on, any Greenlandic families involved in parenting evaluations are supposed to undergo specialised screenings that are more culturally sensitive.
In Bronlund’s case, local authorities eventually admitted that they had made an “error” in the way they handled it. The case was sent to an appeals board for a hearing last week.
The hearing took place in Copenhagen, drawing a small group of demonstrators who insisted that Bronlund be reunited with her daughter, who she has named Aviaja-Luuna. The session lasted only 30 minutes.
It is not clear when the two will be reunited. The appeals board said publicly only that it had told the municipality “of what needs to be implemented”.
In recent months, in light of Trump’s enthusiasm to “get” Greenland, as he puts it, the Danish government has taken extra steps to improve relations with the island. This week, Denmark’s prime minister is scheduled to travel there to make an official apology for wrongs committed in the past, especially against Greenlandic women.
Michael Bang Petersen, a political-science professor in Aarhus, Denmark, said he didn’t think there had been any direct political involvement in Bronlund’s case, because that’s “not how the board operates”.
But, he said: “The government looks at this with satisfaction. There’s been a lot of focus in reversing patterns of injustice and discrimination, and this case had played into the overall argument that Denmark has been discriminating against Greenland and have not appreciated their particular culture.” – This article originally appeared in the New York Times
