Agnethe Nielsen

Marie Agnethe Kathrine Nielsen (née Salomonsen ; born May 13, 1925 in Qeqertarsuaaraq ; † February 11, 2011 in Narsaq ) was a Greenlandic politician ( Atassut ) and women's rights activist .

Life

Agnethe Salomonsen was born in 1925 on a now abandoned farm near Qassimiut as the illegitimate daughter of Johanne Helga Ingeborg Bole Eleonora Salomonsen (1896–1951) and Valdemar Frederiksen, a crew member of the inspection ship Islands Falk .

From 1940 to 1942 she visited the girls efterskole in Aasiaat , which was very unusual for village girls at the time, but the catechist and poet Simon Nielsen encouraged the lively and enthusiastic Agnethe. After finishing school, she lived with a Danish family in Greenland, where she learned Danish. Her desire to become a teacher was hampered by the isolation of Greenland caused by World War II . After the war ended, she moved to Denmark together with her Danish partner Kai Nielsen (1915–1987) in 1946, whom she married on September 17 of the same year. Three sons were born to the couple: Jakob (* 1955), Christian (* 1958) and Johan (* 1962).

They had already returned to Greenland in 1951. In 1954 Agnethe Nielsen became an interpreter, from 1961 to 1975 she was employed. In 1955 she was persuaded to stand as a substitute for Ingvar Høegh for the council of the municipality of Narsaq . Høegh left Narsaq shortly afterwards and Agnethe Nielsen moved up. She was subsequently elected to the local council until 1989. In 1960 she became the second mayor of Greenland, with Kristine Donaldusson only serving as mayor of Maniitsoq for a few months in 1959. It was only with her political retreat in 1989 that she gave up the mayor's office. In 1979 she ran as first substitute for Lars Godtfredsen for the first Inatsisartut . When he resigned from parliament in 1981 for personal reasons, Agnethe Nielsen took his place, making her the first female member of the Inatsisartut and thus also the second state politician after Elisabeth Johansen , who had previously been the only woman in the state council . In 1983 she ran as deputy to Ingvar Høegh. In the following years she was at most a deputy candidate in the parliamentary elections. In 1991 she returned from political retirement and this time was successfully elected to Inatsisartut until 1995.

Agnethe Nielsen's first years as a councilor were marked by a wave of tuberculosis in Greenland. So she set up a care and supervision watch for children whose parents were in hospitals in Nuuk or Denmark for the purpose of tuberculosis treatment . She was one of the initiators of the social law in Greenland in the mid-1960s. From 1968 to 1972 she was able to fulfill her teenage dream of becoming a teacher when she trained the first social workers in Greenland. The first domestic helpers were also hired on Agnethe Nielsen's initiative. From 1968 to 1975 she was a member of the local association of Grønlands Arbejder Sammenslutning in Narsaq, where she became an honorary member in 1989. In 1969 she was a member of a committee that was supposed to analyze the position of women in Greenlandic society. From 1973 to 1975 she was the only woman on the Hemostyrea Committee . In 1975 she co-edited four publications on the role of women in Greenland. She was also a member of the KANUKOKA administration from 1972 to 1989 and was vice-chairman of the Atuagagdliutit for many years . When her husband died of cancer in 1987 , Agnethe Nielsen and Neriuffik ( German place of  hope ) founded the Greenlandic department of Kræftens Bekæmpelse , the Danish cancer-fighting association, where she worked actively from 1989 to 1998.

For her commitment, Agnethe Nielsen was awarded the Dannebrogorden in 1982, first as a knight , then in 1997 as a first class knight . On November 29, 1990, she also received the Nersornaat in silver. She was also the bearer of the Kongelige Belønningsmedalje and the Fortjenstmedaljen , which made her the most decorated woman in Greenland.

After her husband died from cancer, the heavy smoker became an anti-smoker. Nonetheless, she was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2011, of which she died a few days later on February 11 in Narsaq hospital.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Church registers Qaqortoq 1916–1927 (Born girls p. 67)
2. ^ Parliamentary election candidates 1979 in the Atuagagdliutit of March 29, 1979
3. ^ Agnethe Nielsen i landstinget in the Atuagagdliutit of April 9, 1981
4. ↑ Parliamentary election candidates 1983 in the Atuagagdliutit of March 9, 1983
5. ↑ Biography in Dansk Kvindebiografisk Leksikon
6. ↑ Agnethe Nielsen fylder 85 år in Sermitsiaq
7. ↑ Agnethe Nielsen døde fredag ​​aften in Sermitsiaq
8. ↑ Agnethe Nielsen er død at knr.gl