Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has arrived in Denmark’s autonomous territory Greenland for a ceremony Wednesday to apologise in person to the victims of a forced contraception programme that Copenhagen ran for more than three decades.
After landing, Frederiksen said in a post to social media that the apology constituted an “important marking” of a “dark chapter in our shared history”.
“It will be a very important moment for these women, obviously, but also for society as a whole,” Aaja Chemnitz, an MP who represents Greenland in the Danish parliament, told AFP.
“It’s a second step in the reconciliation process after first announcing the apology” in late August, she said.
A special ceremony in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, was to begin at 2:00 pm (1500 GMT).
From the late 1960s until 1992, Danish authorities forced around 4,500 Inuit women, around half of all those of child-bearing age, to wear a contraceptive coil — or intrauterine device (IUD) — without their consent.
The aim was to reduce the Inuit birth rate.
Many of the women were left sterile and almost all of them have suffered from physical or psychological problems.
The scandal is one of several sensitive issues tainting Denmark’s ties to Greenland, including forced adoptions and the forced removal of Greenlandic Inuit children from their families.
Denmark has over the past year been keen to smooth over tensions with its strategically located, resource-rich Arctic territory, which US President Donald Trump has said he wants to take over for security reasons.
At the end of August, Frederiksen presented a long-awaited apology to the victims of the forced contraception campaign, in a written statement.
On Monday, she also announced the creation of a “reconciliation fund” to compensate the victims, as well as other Greenlanders who suffered discrimination because of their Inuit heritage.
“It’s very good news because my clients are not satisfied with just an apology,” said lawyer Mads Pramming, who represents around 150 of the victims who have sued the Danish state for violating their rights and sought financial compensation.
“The timing is good. She would not have been warmly welcomed if she hadn’t suggested (the compensation) in advance,” he told AFP.
Chemnitz said the apology was a direct result of Trump’s assertive statements about taking over Greenland.
“It’s the external pressure, especially from the United States, that is forcing Denmark to increase its efforts,” she said.
“I’ve been an MP for 10 years and I’ve never seen so much effort until now.”
Frederiksen has broken with the tradition of her predecessors who insisted Denmark had no reason to apologise.
“In the past, the Danish prime ministers have always been extremely reluctant to acknowledge injustices committed in Greenland. They argued there was nothing to apologise for,” said historian Astrid Andersen, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.
The scandal came to light when one of the victims spoke out in the media several years ago about the trauma she experienced.
A podcast series in 2022 then revealed the full extent of the campaign.
The Danish and Greenlandic governments agreed to launch an independent inquiry into the scandal, which was recently completed.
“At this point, it is important to many Greenlanders to mourn as a community and to have full recognition of this horrible thing that happened,” Andersen said.
A separate inquiry into the legal implications of the campaign is still underway.
Its report, which is tasked with determining whether the Danish campaign constituted a “genocide”, is to be published in early 2026.
AFP
