Greenland to Open Truth Commission over Forced Contraception Scheme
The report follows a compensation deal and a Danish apology as more than 4,000 Inuit women seek accountability for the campaign.
- On Friday, a Greenlandic commission releases a long-awaited report to determine whether Denmark's forced contraception campaign against thousands of indigenous Inuit women constituted "genocide."
- Between the 1960s and 1990, more than 4,000 Inuit women were forced to wear IUDs without consent, with at least 4,070 affected by the late 1970s.
- Victim Henriette Berthelsen told AFP the conclusions were skewed since no Greenlandic Inuit were appointed as experts. "It's my body, my life, and my right to self-determination," she said.
- Danish parliament members agreed on Thursday to provide compensation for affected women, an initiative pushed by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen who apologized last year.
- Amid calls for a "Truth and Reconciliation" commission, Greenland faces complex geopolitical pressures, including rejecting threats from President Donald Trump to acquire the territory.
27 Articles
27 Articles
From 1960 to 1990, more than 4000 Inuit women received an IUD for the majority without their consent.
Forced birth control in Greenland violated women’s rights but didn’t constitute genocide, experts find
A campaign of forced contraception in Greenland that ran primarily in the 1960s and 1970s violated women’s human rights but did not meet the legal definition of genocide, two expert reports concluded on Friday.
Researchers are still divided on whether Denmark committed genocide when thousands of Greenlandic girls and women were fitted with IUDs. Greenland wants a reconciliation commission.
Denmark pays for its past
The new law will offer those affected a one-time payment of 300,000 Danish kroner, or around $47,000, following a landmark report last year by officials in Denmark and Greenland. Greenlandic women and girls as young as 12 were implanted with IUDs, often without their consent or knowledge, sometimes leaving them infertile. The Danish government at the time hoped to slow population growth on the island, which now has a population of around 57,000.…
Thousands of young Greenlandic women had IUDs inserted against their will during Denmark's "IUD campaign." Now the Greenlandic government wants to set up a reconciliation commission. "I expect that Denmark wants to be part of the work," says Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen.
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