COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) – More than 350 Greenlandic Indigenous women and girls, including some 12 years old and younger, were forcibly given contraception by Danish health authorities in cases that date back to the 1960s, according to an independent report released Tuesday.
The Inuit victims, many of them teenagers, were either fitted with intrauterine contraceptive devices, known as IUDs or coils, or given a hormonal birth control injection. They were not told details about the procedure, or did not give their consent.
The governments of Denmark and Greenland officially apologized last month for their roles in the historic mistreatment in an apparent attempt to get out ahead of the highly anticipated report, which covered 488 instances of forced contraception between 1960 and the end of 1991.
Nearly 150 Inuit women last year sued Denmark and filed compensation claims against its health ministry, saying Danish health authorities violated their human rights. Danish authorities last year said as many as 4,500 women and girls – reportedly half of the fertile women in Greenland at the time – received IUDs between the 1960s and mid-1970s.
The alleged purpose was to limit population growth in Greenland by preventing pregnancies. The population on the Arctic island was rapidly increasing at the time because of better living conditions and better health care.
Greenland took over its own healthcare programs on Jan. 1, 1992.
The investigation’s conclusion comes as Greenland is in the headlines alongside U.S. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland. He has not ruled out a military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island.
The leaders of Denmark and Greenland say the island is not for sale. Denmark’s foreign minister recently summoned the top U.S. diplomat in the country for talks after the main national broadcaster reported that at least three people with connections to Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland.
Greenland, which remains part of the Danish realm, was a colony under Denmark’s crown until 1953, when it became a province in the Scandinavian country. In 1979 the island was granted home rule, and 30 years later Greenland became a self-governing entity.
The forced contraception of Indigenous women and girls was part of centuries of Danish policies that dehumanized Greenlanders and their families.
The policies included the removal of young Inuit children from their parents to be given to Danish foster families for reeducation and controversial parental competency tests that resulted in the forced separation of Greenlandic families.
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