Danish PM Apologizes for Greenland Colonial-Era Scandal

• Rolien Créton

  Correspondent Scandinavia

The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is in the Greenland capital Nuuk to officially apologize for the “IUDstjes scandal”. For decades, a IUD was placed with Greenland girls and women, for many without permission or outside of their knowledge. With this form of contraception, the Danish government wanted to inhibit population growth.

The Greenlandse Henriette Berthelsen was 13 years old when a note was hung at her boarding school in Nuuk. Greenland girls had to go to the hospital for an IUD. “I had no idea what it meant, we were not sexually active.”

Greenland children at the boarding school were separated from Danish children. “An apartheid system, similar to South Africa,” says Berthelsen. In the waiting room she and her classmates were called one by one to enter a room with a doctor. And piece by piece they came out crying and broken, she remembers.

Placing the IUD at Berthelsen was so traumatic that she repressed parts. What she keeps with her is the hellish, all -dominating pain and the feeling that she was raped, without anyone came to the rescue of her. “My parents knew nothing about it and I never dared to tell them.”

The now 67-year-old woman, nurse and therapist, says that the spirals that were then used were much larger than today. And moreover they were made for adult women: “The IUD was much too big for my womb.”

Many girls received complications, including Henriette. She emitted the IUD no less than nine times. “And there was no discussion about whether it was a good idea to replace the tool again and again. After all, the Danish ‘land doctor’ had said that Greenland women could not handle the pill.”

“None of school explained anything or came to comfort us and parents all lived far away. Some children even committed suicide. We were not talking about that.”

The spiral campaign was initiated by the Danes in Greenland in the late 60s. Greenland went from a colony to a municipality in 1953. That meant that Groenlanders were entitled to all facilities of the welfare state.

A large -scale modernization process was set in motion by the Danes, forcing residents in far away areas to leave the house and fireplace from one moment to the next and to move places designated by Danes. Flats, schools and hospitals were set up.

The modernization process led to the baby and infant mortalityary decreased and the Greenland population grew. It was the strongest population growth in the world at the time. The Danes looked at that growth with sadness: according to them it led to major social problems, whereby the costs of the welfare state would rise.

And so the Danish Ministry of Health initiated the “spiral campaign”. This campaign peaked in the 60s and 70s; In 4500 girls and women, forced an IUD, or in half of all women in Greenland. In some of the women that even happened “secretly”: they came for an abortion or surgery in the hospital and were used unsolicited. It had major consequences for the women and for all of Greenland: some of the women remained unwanted childless and the population growth decreased sharply.

This practice was also continued in the 80s and 90s; Even after 1992, when Greenland officially took over the care policy from Denmark, forced spirals were placed. It is the reason that Greenlandse Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen is also next to the Danish Prime Minister to offer apologies.

Berthelsen dared to share her story with anyone and, like many other women, was left with a sense of shame and sorrow. Only in 2022 did the first Greenland women began to tell their story and the Danish broadcaster Dr. brought out the scandal.

Initially, the Danish government did not want to do anything with it. But the pressure was getting bigger, helped by the fact that US President Trump wants to incorporate Groenland and exploit the Greenland anger on the Danes.

In the end Denmark established an independent investigation. 143 Greenland women, including Berthelsen, have sued the Danish state. They each demand 40,000 euros as compensation.

But for Berthelsen the most important thing is that attention is paid to the many black chapters in history with Denmark. Attention must be paid to the institutional racism that the Groenlanders are still dealing with.

“Saying sorry is not enough. We have to map out what happened and what problems are still there, to be able to close this out and look ahead.”