Earlier this month, a group of 143 women sued the Danish state because they had IUDs inserted as young people by Danish doctors, without their consent.
The women are said to have had IUDs inserted against their will in a period from 1966 to 1970. This was to reduce the population in the former Danish colony of Greenland. At least 4,500 women are affected, but it is believed that the actual number may be even higher, writes The Guardian.
The women demanded compensation of NOK 43 million in total. They did so because the Danish government has not responded to the compensation claim that a number of women put forward in October last year, according to NTB.
Then 67 women demanded NOK 300,000 each for violations of human rights.
Naja Lyberth was only 14 years old in 1976 when she had an IUD inserted against her will. She appeared in DR with her story, and received a lot of attention for it.
– It was like having knives inside me. It felt like an assault. The state took my virginity, she told DR.
Lyberth knew several people who went through the same thing. She was far from the only one affected by what is now known as the “Spiral Campaign”.
As many women as possible
When Greenland became part of Denmark, modernization of the island was initiated. This led to a significant increase in the number of live-born children in Greenland. This worried Danish politicians, who realized that they would now have to spend more resources on schools and kindergartens. In addition, every fourth child born in 1965 was born out of wedlock, compared to nine percent in Denmark.
This was the background for the spiral campaign. The goal was that as many Greenlandic women of childbearing age as possible should have an IUD. Many girls and women then had an IUD inserted, often without their parents’ consent and knowledge.
Together with the rest of the girls in the class, Naja Lyberth was sent to the hospital by a Danish district doctor.
– We were told that we had to go to the hospital and have an IUD inserted. There was no guidance, we were not asked. My parents were not asked, Lyberth tells DR.
In seven years, the number of births in Greenland was halved.
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– Get on a plane
Greenland is today self-governing, but still part of Denmark.
Now Greenland’s Equality Minister Naaja Nathanielse is asking Denmark’s Health Minister Sophie Løhde to “get on a plane and visit” and listen to the stories of the women affected by the campaign.
– She has been invited several times, but has not yet found time to come. She should get on a plane and visit and talk to these women, says Nathanielsen to The Guardian and adds:
– It gives you a different perspective.
Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam, a politician in Greenland who sits in the Danish Parliament, describes the spiral campaign as a genocide.
– Can you imagine that the Danish government were to say that we have to save, there are too many Danes, so half of all Danish women have to get an IUD? No, you will never hear anyone suggest that, she says to Sermitsiaq.
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Attempted reconciliation
Several times, Denmark and Greenland have tried to reconcile, without success. Now this trial has once again created a need for reconciliation.
In the past, it has also been revealed that the Danish government over 73 years ago introduced a secret project, the so-called “Greenland experiment”, writes NRK. With help from the Red Cross and Save the Children, 22 children were to be sent for a one-year stay in Denmark. The idea behind the experiment was that the children should become Danish and have a better life.
This ended with several of the children losing contact with their families. They were either adopted away, or sent to an orphanage.
Denmark Russia Ukraine War Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has apologized on behalf of her government. (Liselotte Sabroe/AP)
In 2022, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen apologized to the six children who were still alive then.
– What you were exposed to was wrong, inhumane, unreasonable and heartless, she said.
Greenland’s Equality Minister Naaja Nathanielse says that they have not received the response they wanted from the Danish government after several women have gone to court. Therefore, Greenland itself has launched an investigation.
To The Guardian, the Danish Ministry of the Interior and Health says that they do not want to comment on the fact that Løhde has not visited Greenland, and says that they are not aware that an investigation is underway.
Nathanielse says that it has taken a long time to reveal this scandal, and that it is only now that the Danish politicians realize the extent of what happened. There are still many others who have trouble accepting it.
– There is an injustice that was committed, and decisions that were made on behalf of other people, which had major consequences for their lives, which was quite devastating, she says.
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