AGI – 143 Greenland-born women today filed a complaint against the Danish state over a discreetly organized campaign in the 1960s and 1970s to have an intrauterine device inserted into them without their consent. “The lawsuit has been filed. My clients made this decision because they did not receive a response to their claim for damages in October,” said the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Mads Pramming. “Their human rights have been violated, they themselves are proof of this,” he added. In the late 1960s, Denmark introduced a contraceptive policy to limit the birth rate in the Arctic region, which, although no longer a colony since 1953, remained under its care. A series of podcasts based on the national archives, broadcast by Danish broadcaster DR in 2022, have revealed the extent of this campaign, as Denmark and Greenland, which gained self-governing status in 2009, examine their past relationships. In October, 67 women filed claims for damages worth 300,000 crowns ($43,700) each.
“Since then, other women have spoken out. The oldest is 85 years old,” explained Pramming. In the 1960s and 1970s, approximately 4,500 young Inuit women were fitted with intrauterine devices (IUDs) without their consent or that of their families. Many of them did not know they were using a contraceptive and, until recently, Greenlandic gynecologists discovered IUDs in women who did not know they had one. A commission of inquiry into Danish policy towards Greenland set up last year plans to publish its findings in 2025. “This commission and its findings are irrelevant to the cases. “It will not decide whether their rights were violated, but the judiciary will be able to decide,” the lawyer added. In 2022, six Inuit received an apology and compensation, more than 70 years after they were separated from their families to take part in an experiment to create a Danish-speaking elite on the vast Arctic island.