An investigation into the forced insertion of IUDs on Inuit women in Greenland

Britta Mortensen was one of 4,500 Inuit women who had an IUD forced to be inserted in Greenland in the 1960s. (illustration image) AFP - ODD ANDERSEN

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1 min

This is a little-known practice in Denmark with regard to Greenlandic Inuit women: at the end of the 1960s, a certain number of them underwent an operation to prevent them from having children.

But these IUD insertions took place without consent and could have had dramatic consequences on the health of these women.

A health scandal on which Greenland and Denmark have decided to conduct a joint investigation.

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Suffering, ignorance and the feeling of being alone have long led women victims of this practice to remain silent.

But several decades later, the testimonies accumulate... And recross.

The IUDs were implanted without consent and without explanation on women, often still young girls: teenagers from the age of twelve, approached in their schools.

According to a Danish podcast, Spiralkampagnen, up to 4,500 women and girls were sterilized in this way between 1966 and 1970. This then represented almost half of Greenland's female population of childbearing age.

And the practice continued until the mid-1970s. With sometimes dramatic consequences: bleeding, pain on bodies too small for these devices and sometimes infections that could lead to lifelong sterility.

"

 ", admitted this Friday the Danish Minister of Health, while the Council for Human Rights of Greenland evokes for its part a possible "

 ".

The investigation that the two parties will jointly conduct should last two years and will cover all health practices in Greenland from 1960 to 1991, when Denmark was in charge of health policy in its former colony.

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