Key facts
- Forced contraception in Greenland between 1966 and 1970 violated women's rights, according to expert reports.
- Two expert reports on the practice reached different conclusions regarding whether it constituted genocide.
- Greenland's justice minister stated the government cannot definitively conclude if genocide occurred.
- Denmark has offered 300,000 Danish crowns in compensation to each affected woman.
- The birth-control program involved implanting IUDs in thousands of women and girls, some as young as 13, often without consent.
Greenland's justice minister has stated that the government cannot definitively conclude whether genocide was committed against the Inuit community through a forced contraception program in the 1960s and 70s. This follows the release of two expert reports commissioned by the Greenlandic government.
One report, authored by Alaskan lawyer Dalee Sambo Dorough and law professor Miriam Cullen, found that the rights of Inuit women in Greenland were violated by the practice but could not conclude that genocide had occurred based solely on contraceptive measures. They noted that genocidal intent by Denmark remained a possible inference for a court to establish, potentially based on evidence outside their report, such as the removal of Inuit children.
A rival report, produced by Jonas Christoffersen and Jensine Nedergaard, accepted that women had been wronged but found no evidence that any authority intended to destroy the Greenlandic population. Greenland's Justice Minister Marianne Paviasen commented that the reports were so divergent that one suggested no genocide occurred, while the other indicated it could have.
Denmark has passed a compensation law offering 300,000 Danish crowns (approximately $46,800) to each woman affected by the policy. Records indicate that between 1966 and 1970, 4,500 Greenlandic women and girls, some as young as 13, had intra-uterine devices (IUDs) implanted under a birth-control program administered by Danish doctors, often without their knowledge or consent. This program significantly slowed Greenland's population growth.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had previously issued an apology for the "systematic discrimination" against Greenlandic women and their families. The practice, known as the 'spiral case,' was reportedly designed to control the territory's population growth, which had alarmed Danish authorities due to modernization, better healthcare, and an increasing rate of teenage pregnancies. Fertility rates dropped sharply during the campaign.