Some of them were barely teenagers when an IUD was inserted into them without their consent: on Monday, 67 women born in Greenland submitted a claim for compensation to the Danish state, which had discreetly organized this campaign.
• Also read: According to the study, Greenland is more vulnerable to climate change than expected
The plaintiffs are each demanding 300,000 crowns (around 40,200 euros).
In the late 1960s, Denmark introduced a contraceptive policy to limit the birth rate in the Arctic region, which, although no longer a colony since 1953, remained under the supervision of Copenhagen.
A series of podcasts based on the National Archives, broadcast by Danish radio and television DR in spring 2022, revealed the scope of this campaign at a time when Denmark and Greenland, which gained autonomous territory status in 2009, are reneging on their previous relations explore.
A commission of inquiry into the policy set up last year must publish its conclusions in 2025. But the complainants want to find relief more quickly.
“We don’t want to wait for the results of the investigation,” psychologist Naja Lyberth, who filed the compensation claim, told AFP.
“We’re getting older – the oldest of us who had IUDs in the 1960s were born in the 40s, they’re approaching 80,” she explained. “We want to act now.”
In the 1960s and 1970s, around 4,500 young Inuit were placed in IUDs without their consent or that of their families.
According to Ms. Lyberth, a large number of women were unaware that they were using a contraceptive and, until recently, Greenlandic gynecologists found IUDs in women who were unaware of their presence.
“It is already 100% clear that the government has broken the law through human rights violations and serious abuses against us,” she added.
According to her, the government will reject their requests until the results of the investigation are available – in which case the matter will be referred to court.
In 2022, six Inuit had received an apology and compensation, more than 70 years after they were separated from their families to take part in an experiment aimed at creating a Danish-speaking elite on the island.