Denmark has publicly apologized on Wednesday to the Greenlands women who were forced, decades ago, to use contraceptive methods – often without their consent and without even being aware of it – as part of a state campaign to control birth between the indigenous population of the Arctic Island. “We cannot change what has happened. But we can assume responsibility. That is why, on behalf of Denmark, I mean: I’m sorry,” said Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, in the midst of Copenhagen’s efforts for repairing relations with Greenland – autonomous territory of the kingdom of Denmark – and counteracting.
“We recognize that this case has been the origin of anger and grief for many Greenlanders and many families in Greenland. And, naturally, it has influenced the way of perceiving Denmark and the Commonwealth of the Kingdom (which also includes the Faroe Islands),” said the social democrat Frederiksen in a statement. “Sorry to girls and women who have been subject to systematic discrimination for being greenlands, for having suffered physical and psychic damage, for having failed them,” he added, extending apologies a.
Danish public radio revealed in 2022 that at least 4,500 women and adolescents underwent the implementation of intrauterine devices from the 1960s to 1991, when Greenland assumed the competences in health. The initiative was due to a state campaign of family planning in a territory that, in 1953, ceased to be a Danish colony and that.
About 150 Greenlands women sue the State last year, claiming that they were placed an intrauterine device without their consent and demanding compensation. Denmark has not yet offered any compensation, arguing that an investigation into the matter is still ongoing, whose results are expected to be published next month.
The Greenlandic government has also opened other parallel investigations on the abuses suffered by Inuit women, and has already reserved 4.5 million Danish crowns (about 600,000 euros) for the payment of possible compensation.
Frederiksen has already apologized in March 2022 to six Inuit during a ceremony in Copenhagen, for a social experiment carried out in the fifties, in which a group of children was transferred to Denmark to be educated and assimilated by adoptive Danish families, with the aim of returning to the Arctic Island converted into a kind of Greenlandic elite.
In parallel, also this Wednesday, to demand explanations for the alleged “influence operations” carried out on the island by people linked to the Donald Trump administration. Danish intelligence services suggest that Greenland is the subject of campaigns to cause dissensions with Copenhagen and agitated the secessionist movement. The US president has repeatedly stated his interest in groaning Greenland, and has accused Copenhagen of mistreating the indigenous population and neglecting investment in defense for the Arctic Island, and very rich in natural resources.
