In Greenland, the scourge of child sexual abuse has emerged as a pressing concern, with nearly one in three having suffered abuse in their childhood, and efforts to combat it hampered by a persistent conspiracy of silence.
The sparsely populated autonomous Danish territory is confronted with major social problems, including high levels of suicide and alcoholism.
The government highlights alcohol and hash abuse as the highest health concerns.
Photo: AFP
However, the airing of a documentary on sexual abuse on Danish TV has renewing a commitment to tackling child abuse.
“I was about six years old... I was woken up in the middle of the night because someone was touching me. My hands were tied, my knees were tied and he abused me,” Anna-Sofie Jonathansen said in the documentary.
She is a resident of Tasiilaq, a remote village in the southeast, where, according to the documentary, nearly half of adults aged 60 and younger were sexually abused as children.
Tasiilaq also reflects another troubling statistic with as many as one in five people committing suicide.
Greenland has one of the highest suicide rates in the world, averaging one per 1,000 inhabitants.
“Many children are victims of sexual abuse and experience violence in their homes. For many of them, this leads to a life full of problems and anxiety, which leads many young people to commit suicide,” said Jonna Ketwa, president of Save the Children in Greenland.
The pervasiveness of the sexual abuse is heavily linked to consumption of drugs and alcohol, and it is more common in violent homes, according to Sara Olsvig, director of the UN International Children’s Emergency Fund in Greenland, who also said that there is a lack of knowledge of children’s rights.
However, complicating matters is that among Greenland’s 56,000 inhabitants the silence around sexual abuse remains deeply embedded.
“For many of them, that’s just the way it is,” teacher Rikke Blegvad said in the documentary.
Tasiilaq resident Naasunnguaq Ignatiussen Streymoy started a petition for better support for victims and said that she received death threats for putting the village in a negative light.
“There will be consequences because it’s not okay to portray their perfect village in this way,” she said in the documentary.
A public health study published in April showed that 20 percent of Greenlanders born after 1995 were sexually abused as children.
That figure is less than half that of the previous generation, when 43 percent of people born from 1975 to 1979 suffered abuse.
There are signs that the conspiracy of silence is starting to show cracks as more Greenlanders come forward to report abuse to authorities.
Last year, 436 complaints of sexual offenses — 50 more than in 2017 — were filed in Greenland, of which 20 percent concerned minors.
That represents eight complaints per 1,000 inhabitants, compared with 1.1 complaints per 1,000 in the rest of Denmark.
“Within the police and the prosecution authority, we are seeing that, for the moment, the taboo around sexual abuse is ever so slightly being challenged,” Greenland Police Chief Bjorn Tegner Bay said in his annual report.
However, he also said that “there is a long way to go,” and in some areas there were no reports of abuse against children, indicating that the culture of silence still reigns.
“Changes should come from inside,” said Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, who represents Greenland in the Danish Parliament. “We need to collaborate with qualified people to gather more knowledge and have a permanent investment.”
Chemnitz Larsen has requested the aid of Copenhagen to help address the issue.
Even Greenland’s local parliament, traditionally staunchly mindful of its autonomy, has turned to Denmark, which normally only handles state functions.
In Nuuk, the government which is sovereign in terms of economic and social policy, has put in place a strategy with the aim of eradicating the sexual abuse of children by 2022.
It intends to launch information campaigns, particularly aimed at raising awareness on children’s rights.
The government has promised to provide care for all those affected, but to deliver on this promise, it needs to encourage social workers to move to the most remote areas.
“There are not enough psychologists or social workers to help ... families and victims. We are not even close to being able to help predators,” Ketwa said.
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