Danish authorities took a one-hour-old baby girl away from her Greenlandic mother after conducting a “parenting competency” test (FKU) despite this test having been banned for use on people with Inuit backgrounds earlier this year.A Greenlandic mother, Ivana Nikoline Brønlund, had her newborn daughter taken into foster care an hour after giving birth in Denmark.Brønlund (18), who was born in Nuuk to Greenlandic parents and represented Greenland in handball, gave birth to her daughter, Aviaja-Luuna, on August 11 at a hospital near Copenhagen. She told The Guardian that since then she has only seen her child once, for an hour, and was not allowed to comfort her or change her nappy.Danish campaigners and rights groups argued the tests were not suitable for Inuit families. The ban took effect in May, but Brønlund was still assessed.She told The Guardian: “I didn’t want to go into labour because I knew what would happen afterwards. I would keep my baby nearby me when she was in my stomach, that was the closest I would be with her.”The Danish social affairs minister, Sophie Hæstorp Andersen, said she had asked the local municipality in Høje-Taastrup to explain its handling of the case. She told The Guardian: “Standardised tests should not be used in placement cases involving families with a Greenlandic background. The law is clear.”Local authorities had started testing Brønlund in April, before the law came into force, and completed the process in June, a month after the law kicked into force. But she said she was informed three weeks before giving birth that her baby would be removed.Story continues below this adThe municipality told her that her baby was taken away partly because of trauma she had suffered in the past. Brønlund’s adoptive father is in prison for sexually abusing her. She said she was also told she was “not Greenlandic enough” for the ban on the tests to apply in her case.Her first meeting with her daughter earlier this week was cut short because staff believed the baby was overtired. “My heart broke when she [the supervisor] stopped the time,” Brønlund told The Guardian. “I was so sad, I cried out to the car and in the car. It was so fast that we had to leave.”Brønlund is allowed supervised visits once a fortnight for two hours. Her appeal will be heard on 16 September.Campaigners in Greenland, Iceland, Denmark and elsewhere have organised protests. Dida Pipaluk Jensen, who is helping to arrange a demonstration outside the Danish embassy in Reykjavík, told The Guardian: “One of the reasons the municipality stated for the removal of her daughter was because of previous trauma in Ivana’s life. This feels so wrong to punish Ivana for something she is not responsible for.”Story continues below this adLaila Bertelsen, head of the association Foreningen MAPI, which supports Inuit parents in Denmark, has written to the minister urging action. “Here we are faced with a failure of both child and mother, which requires immediate political action,” she wrote.Høje-Taastrup municipality declined to comment on the details, citing confidentiality. But the director of children and youth services, Anya Krogh Manghezi, said the municipality had reviewed its handling of the case.She told The Guardian: “We assessed that we showed due diligence by contacting VISO already in January, but we must acknowledge that we should have repeated the contact, as the legal basis finally fell into place three months after April 29, 2025. We are only interested in ensuring that the family’s legal requirements are met and that the best possible solution is found for the family.”