'Fatherless' Greenlanders accuse Denmark of human rights violations

The government of Denmark is being sued for human rights violations by 26 people from Greenland who were born out of wedlock in Denmark and want the right to know and take their father's name.

Greenland, with a population of just under 57,000, is officially part of Denmark - like the Faroe Islands - but is largely autonomous.

The complaint pertains to people born 1938 and later. These so-called "fatherless" people are complaining because people born out of wedlock in Denmark have had the right to know their father's name and take his surname since 1938. In Greenland, this was only fully allowed in 1974.

"Our clients have been discriminated against because they were born in Greenland," Albert Gunnarsen from the law firm Ehmer Pramming told the Danish public broadcaster DR on Wednesday evening.

The plaintiffs are each seeking 125,000 kroner ($17,950) in compensation.

According to the Danish government, there were about 3,300 "fatherless" in Greenland in 2017, as well as 1,300 "fatherless" Greenlanders in Denmark.

Their fathers are presumably mostly men from the United States, Denmark and the Faroe Islands who came to work in Greenland.

In 1973, according to a government report, about 55% of children were born out of wedlock, often for racial reasons.