Forced birth control in Greenland violated women’s rights, experts find

Greenland will establish a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate a decades-long forced contraceptive campaign targeting Indigenous women and girls, following the failure of an expert panel to agree on whether the practice constituted genocide.

The decision comes as the Danish parliament agreed on Thursday to provide compensation of up to 300,000 Danish crowns, approximately $46,758, for each victim of the campaign. The financial redress follows a formal apology issued by Denmark last year, during which Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen acknowledged systematic discrimination against Greenlanders.

A joint Danish-Greenlandic inquiry revealed that between the 1960s and 1990s, at least 4,000 Greenlandic Inuit women and girls—some as young as 12—were fitted with intrauterine devices (IUDs) or given contraceptive injections, often without their knowledge or consent. Danish authorities implemented the scheme to reduce birth rates and family sizes, viewing it as a strategy to improve living standards and social conditions in the semi-sovereign Arctic territory of 57,000 people.

The involuntary procedures resulted in severe medical complications for many victims, including chronic infections, scarring of the fallopian tubes, hysterectomies, and permanent infertility.

A four-member commission appointed by Greenland's government in 2024 to examine the campaign was unable to reach a unanimous conclusion regarding the classification of the violations. Greenlandic Justice Minister Marianne Paviasen stated that one expert report concluded no genocide occurred, while another found that the extent of the violations could not be conclusively established.

"We cannot say, on behalf of the government, whether there was genocide. This is something we can continue to debate," Paviasen told reporters.

Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen stated that the upcoming reconciliation commission would "not be about assigning blame, but about uncovering the truth with a view to genuine reconciliation." Danish Prime Minister Frederiksen confirmed that Copenhagen would "handle the political process together with the government of Greenland."

However, political figures and victims have expressed dissatisfaction with the findings. Greenland's Siumut Party urged that the genocide question be submitted to a competent and independent international court, noting that the territory's population could have been substantially larger today without the state-sponsored campaign.

Victims also criticized the investigative process for excluding Greenlandic Inuit members from the expert panel. Henriette Berthelsen, a victim of the campaign, questioned why outside investigators were defining what was done to Inuit women, calling the issue a matter of body autonomy and self-determination.

Another victim, 70-year-old Inger Platou, recounted discovering that an IUD had been inserted without her consent after she woke up from what she believed was a minor operation. She stated that complications from the device left her unable to become pregnant, describing the forced contraception program as an inhumane act designed to stop Inuit women from giving birth.