Photo: Map showing the approximate location of the Inuit in Alaska, Canada, Siberia, and Greenland
Instead of a preface
Thida Sigurdsdatter Rav. Journalist, translator and initiator of the association of legal orphans in Greenland.
I was so naive that I believed that my rights as a person with a Danish passport and citizenship were protected by existing legislation. Can human rights be violated in beautiful and democratic Denmark? Yes, they can, and it depends on what part of the Commonwealth you live in.
For us living here in Greenland, human rights are only declared, and we are deprived of the opportunity to file complaints in court under the current legal system. I learned about this in 2010, when I had to face the impossibility of going to court with a complaint that the state was keeping me as a legal orphan. My complaint was rejected on the grounds that the equal treatment law does not apply to Greenland.
Read about the problem of children born out of wedlock in Greenland
The Greenlandic Parliament has passed a law on equal treatment and anti-discrimination.
On May 28, 2024, the Parliament of Greenland adopted a law on equal treatment and combating discrimination. Greenland's indigenous people, the Inuit, can now enjoy much stronger legal protections against discrimination and will be able to take legal action against violations of their rights. Until now, the population of Greenland has not been protected by a general ban on discrimination, which is a violation of Article 14 of The European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols, adopted in Rome in 1950.
The new Equal Treatment and Anti-Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination based on many more criteria than before. Once the law comes into force, discrimination against citizens on the basis of pregnancy, maternity leave, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, gender characteristics, race, color, national, social or ethnic origin, disability, age, political opinion, religion and beliefs will be prohibited.
With the adoption of the law, an independent review commission will also be created, where citizens will be able to file complaints of discrimination.
The adoption of the law by the Greenland Parliament is welcomed by IPS, the Greenland Human Rights Council, which has long worked to strengthen protection against discrimination for Greenland's indigenous people.
Anti-discrimination legislation in Greenland has so far been weak and we have therefore always recommended further legislation in this area. Our recommendations were listened to, and now they are finally having an effect. We are happy about this, says Kiviok Lövström, head of the Greenland Human Rights Council.
Back in 2016, the Human Rights Institute, together with the Greenland Human Rights Council, called on the government of the autonomous entity to strengthen protection of the indigenous population of the world's largest island from discrimination in all areas of protection and to create an independent complaints commission that could consider complaints of discrimination.
Maria Akhtar, head of the law department at the Human Rights Institute, also welcomes progress in the field of human rights.
It is very positive that Greenland wants to introduce more grounds of protection and increase the ability of the public to bring complaints of discrimination to an independent board. Overall, it is very positive that a general ban on discrimination is being introduced, which applies both inside and outside the labor market, says Marya Akhtar.
Violation of the rights of Greenland's indigenous population, the Inuit, by Denmark has been going on for more than 200 years since 1814, when the island became a colony of the Kingdom of Denmark. The Inuit struggle for their rights matured after World War II, the creation of the United Nations, and the formation of a legal system that protected the rights of indigenous peoples around the world.
Systemic discrimination against Inuit in Denmark and Canada is based on racial theory, the main provisions of which were scientifically substantiated in Great Britain in the second half of the 19th century, after which their dissemination followed in all countries of the West.
The destruction of the Nazi Reich in 1945, which tried to implement the British idea of the superiority of the “white man” over all other peoples, did not automatically lead to the elimination of its hellish ideological legacy: racist policies continued until the second half of the 1960s in the southern states of the United States against the non-white population, predominantly black; in Canada in relation primarily to the Inuit. In Europe, the main carriers of Hitler’s poisonous legacy after 1945 were the countries of Northern Europe, for which the main targets of discrimination and human rights violations to this day are the Sámi (Norway, Sweden and Finland) and the Inuit (Denmark).
An updated list of Denmark's violations of the rights of the indigenous people of Greenland is available here
The most egregious example of violation of the rights of the indigenous population in Denmark after the Second World War was the so-called spiral affaire aimed to prevent pregnancy of Inuit women without their consent. This inhumane and illegal practice of the authorities has the hallmarks of genocide and, without a doubt, will be investigated not only by national and therefore biased Danish courts, but also by international judicial bodies.
The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs rejects Greenland's claim: the government has not violated human rights
Perhaps the appeal to court by the victims of the “spiral” case, Inuit women deprived by the Danish authorities of the opportunity to become mothers, will receive the same reaction as in relation to the lawsuit of 26 Greenlanders in connection with the case of the so-called legal orphans, i.e. children born out of wedlock, for whom Danish law was prohibited from establishing paternity and claiming corresponding rights, including inheritance rights. In March 2023, Denmark refused to satisfy the claim for compensation, as follows from the response of the Attorney General to the Copenhagen City Court on behalf of the Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and Senior Citizens.
On February 15, 2023, 26 Greenlanders sued the Danish state for human rights violations and demanded compensation of DKK 125,000 ($18,272) each. The plaintiffs believe that their right to family life was violated in terms of the right to establish legal paternity. This right was introduced in Greenland only many years after it was implemented in Denmark (1938). As a result, Greenlandic children born out of wedlock were unable to identify their father.
Children born out of wedlock in West Greenland before 1963 and in North and East Greenland before 1974 were legally fatherless. Previously, fathers had no paternity obligations for their children born out of wedlock. In practice, this meant that children could not find out who their father was, could not take his surname, and had no right of inheritance.
According to a report by the Ministry of Children and Social Affairs, in 2017 there were approximately 3,300 legal orphans in Greenland (6,6 percent of the total Unuit population) and 1,300 Greenlandic legal orphans in Denmark.
The law firm Ehmer Pramming, which is leading this case, believes that the Danish state has violated Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols. The Danish Ministry of Social Affairs strongly denies this accusation, pointing out in its response that there was no evidence of human rights violations in the case of legal orphans.
Klaus Frederiksen is among 26 Greenlanders who are suing the Danish state for human rights violations. He calls it reckless, arrogant and treacherous that the Ministry of Social Affairs completely denies the existence of human rights violations against legal orphans.
Betrayal is a very strong word that I use now, but I feel compelled to use it, he says.
Over time, we did everything we could to find out about our origins. The state prevented us from doing this. Among other things, the law passed in 2014, which granted the right to initiate paternity proceedings, does not cover cases that were considered before 2014 regarding the right of inheritance and the acquisition of the father’s surname, said Claus Frederiksen.
Denmark's Attorney General took an ostrich approach to the case, saying that even if a human rights violation had been established, the statute of limitations had expired, making it impossible to claim compensation. In his opinion, the statute of limitations expired back in the 1970s and 1980s, when the plaintiffs reached adulthood, and again more recently due to a change in the law in 2014.
But Klaus Frederiksen doesn't think this math problem can be solved that easily.
We are Danish citizens. The government needs to see that there is something terrible about this case and fix it. I think it's a very cheap attempt to ignore the case by simply saying it doesn't meet the statute of limitations requirement.
According to the written response from the Prosecutor General, the Ministry of Social Affairs proposes to consider the case in the district court. However, Klaus Frederiksen is ready, if necessary, to take the case to the Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights.
This is a fundamental question, and I’m not alone, he says.
Mads Prumming, a lawyer for the 26 Greenlandic citizens suing the state, is frustrated that the case is likely to drag on and upset that the ministry has not tried to resolve it out of court.
My clients and I were hoping for a dialogue about compensation for legal orphans, he says.
The editors attempted to interview the Minister of Social Affairs, Pernille Rosencrantz-Theil, on this issue. However, according to the minister’s press service, she did not have the opportunity to provide an interview.
The North Observer will continue to cover this topic.
The North Observer
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