Exclusive: Territory’s government calls for visit to listen to those thought to be living with consequences of forced fitting of IUDs

The Danish health minister should “get on a plane and visit” some of the thousands of women thought to be living with the consequences of being forcibly fitted with the contraceptive coil as children, Greenland’s gender equality minister has said.

In an attempt to reduce the population of the former Danish colony, at least 4,500 women and girls are believed to have undergone the medical procedure, usually without their consent or knowledge, at the hands of Danish doctors between 1966 and 1970 alone.

The total number of those affected by the procedures, thought to have continued for decades, is understood to be far higher. Victims and their lawyers say generations of Inuit women were left traumatised and suffering reproductive complications, including infertility, as a result of the Danish state’s policy.

Earlier this month, a group of 143 women sued the Danish state over the alleged violations, but they have yet to receive a response from the government, despite the Danish prime minister visiting Greenland – now an autonomous territory of Denmark – soon after.

  • livus
    27•7 months ago

    This is such a horrible case and it’s disgusting that Greenland have had to open their own investigation of it while Denmark keeps ignoring it.

    Large pieces of copper were forced into the bodies of children as young as 12 during “routine” medical exams at school. With disastrous effects.

    For several decades, Lyberth repressed her trauma. “I think I was so ashamed that I didn’t want to remember or talk about it,” she says. But the consequences for her body soon became apparent – and lasting.

    IUDs are normally effective for a period of up to ten years, after which they can cause complications such as infections and infertility. The ones forced upon young girls in Greenland were larger than modern devices.

    “I had intense period pains, with enormous bleeding that forced me to stay at home,” she explains. It was only when she reached menopause, at around 50, that she realised the cause of her suffering.

    “I started having circulation problems and ovarian cysts. I was in so much pain that the doctors were considering removing my uterus,” she says. “That’s when it all came back to me.”

    From this article from a few months back.