Denmark says sorry for taking Greenland children in 1950s social experiment
CTV
Denmark's prime minister delivered a face-to-face apology to six living victims of a 1950s social experiment in which 22 Greenlandic children were taken from their families and sent to Denmark to be integrated into Danish society.
The Inuit children were between four and nine years old when they were shipped to Denmark, then the colonial power, in 1951 to try to re-educate them as "little Danes."
The children were supposed to return to Greenland and be part of a new Danish-speaking elite that would help modernize the Arctic island's Inuit population.
The experiment was part of a broader effort by Denmark to convince the United Nations that Greenland, a Danish colony until 1953, was an integrated part of Denmark.
Denmark and other colonial powers had pledged to work towards decolonization when joining the world body in 1945.
