Greenlandic women sue Denmark over historic involuntary contraception

CGTN Europe

In the 1960s and 1970s, young women and girls were fitted with contraceptive devices – and now a fight for justice is nearing its end. CGTN’s Iolo ap Dafydd reports from Nuuk.  Read this piece in full ⬇️ https://tinyurl.com/ytww3nc8

Transcript

00:00Danish authorities are accused of deliberately trying to reduce Greenland's population 50 years ago

00:07through a large-scale contraceptive campaign.

00:10I think this is just devastating.

00:12It's a violation of our rights, of the women's rights, but also of our rights as a people.

00:19Women and underage girls before they were sexually active were fitted with intraterrene devices or coils.

00:26Imagine that you as a 14-year-old girl were given this spiral call,

00:32you're not sexually active, you weren't asked, and it caused all sorts of problems,

00:36and you cannot become a mother.

00:38Some of them have difficulties becoming mothers.

00:41And we want apologies for the women, and we want compensation for the women.

00:45Ministers in Copenhagen and Nuuk have commissioned health researchers to investigate the claims.

00:50Their report is expected in May this year,

00:53including testimonies by women saying how they were involuntarily fitted with devices

00:58as doctors tried to control the population in Greenland.

01:02Women of childbearing age were fitted with coils to prevent pregnancies.

01:07It's thought that 4,500 were affected, half the fertile women in Greenland at that time.

01:13I don't think the scars in our souls would be compensated over money or an apology,

01:20but that's the only diplomatic thing to do.

01:23Officials in Greenland's Centre for Public Health were asked to comment, but declined to be interviewed.

01:29The females that put contraception in their bodies are still alive.

01:34They're here, they don't have kids, they don't have grandkids.

01:38They still feel it, and we are so small communities, we know them.

01:42I spoke on the phone with a woman in Nuuk who had the contraception fitted when she was 14 years old.

01:48She didn't think her mother knew all that consent was given.

01:51She explained in detail what happened, but doesn't want to talk on camera

01:56because of the pain she'd be forced to relive.

01:59In fact, she said her entire adult life had been blighted, and she'd felt trauma all her life.

02:06More than 50 years has gone, and so many women have been affected.

02:10Some have not been able to give birth to children.

02:15Some have had trauma all the time, and so many violations happened back then,

02:23so that it hasn't been out in the open until a few years ago.

02:27In 2022, the Danish Prime Minister apologised formally for another controversial social policy in Greenland.

02:34Inuit children were taken from their families to be brought up in Denmark.

02:39On an island of outstanding beauty, some residents say they still feel the effect of colonial policies

02:46pursued by Danish authorities in the past.

02:49Yoloap Davids, CGTN, Greenland.

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