Denmark has denied a request from four people of Greenlandic origin for compensation over their adoption by Danish families from the 1950s to 1970s, their lawyer said on Thursday.
Research suggests scores of Greenlandic children were adopted by Danes in murky circumstances.
Kalanguak Absalonsen, one of those claiming compensation, said she considered herself to be a “stolen” child because her mother had not understood the terms of the adoption.
Absalonsen, who was born into a Greenland Inuit family in 1971, said her mother did not know “that by signing she would not be authorized to have any contact with me.”
Lawyer Mads Pramming said that the government rejected their request. He vowed to take the case to court.
The social affairs ministry wrote in a letter, seen by AFP, that the adoptions had been carried out with the formal consent of the parents.
Anthropologist Gitte Reimer said the misunderstanding was mainly explained by the gap between Danish culture and adoption law, and Inuit traditions.
According to Reimer’s research, at least 257 children from Greenland were adopted by Danes in unclear circumstances.
The four applicants were seeking 250,000 kroner ($33,664) from the Danish state.
