In excess of five decades ago now, a silent yet significant medical initiative took place in Greenland that rendered thousands of Inuit women and girls incapable of making any decisions regarding their bodies. Over the period spanning from the 1960s through to the early 1990s, Danish health authorities led a campaign for the insertion of intrauterine devices or contraceptive injections into the bodies of at least 4,000–4,070 Greenlandic women and girls, some of whom were as young as 12, without their consent or even their knowledge.
In late August 2026, the report made by the independent experts, commissioned by the government of Greenland, came up with a clear opinion about the program: it infringed on women’s human rights, although it was unclear if the program constituted genocide. This has led to Greenland being on the way towards its Truth and Reconciliation Commission, while Denmark proceeds with compensation in the amount of 300,000 Danish kroner ($46,758).
The scale and mechanics of the contraception campaign
The program was most vigorous in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time Denmark still held sway over Greenland’s health sector as well as other policies. By the end of the 1970s, approximately half of all Greenlandic women of childbearing age had an IUD inserted into their bodies, a fact that demonstrates how pervasive the practice was in the health system. This program continued until the early 1990s, when it ended with Greenland taking more control of its health sector. In 2025, a joint inquiry between Danish and Greenlandic authorities heard testimonies of 354 women about 488 instances of contraception.
Out of 410 cases of IUD insertion, there were 300 cases of no consent or unclear consent, 47 cases of consent, and 63 cases of unclear information. These numbers show in detail how often there was no consent or unclear consent, even as the sheer number of victims—approximately 4,000 to 4,070 between 1966 and 1991—frames the scandal demographically.
Rights violations affirmed: What the experts agree on
Despite their divergence on genocide, the expert panels converged on a fundamental point: the administration of contraception without valid consent breached core human rights. Both reports found that women’s right to respect for private and family life was violated and that, in some cases, the treatment was degrading. The rights framework invoked by the experts is broad and specific: equality and non-discrimination, privacy and family life, freedom to determine the number and spacing of children, the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, and freedom from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, alongside protections for bodily and cultural integrity.
This consensus matters because it shifts the debate from whether something “went wrong” to which rights were systematically breached and how state power was exercised over Indigenous women’s bodies. It also provides a legal and moral foundation for redress, even as the more charged question of genocide remains unresolved.
The genocide question: Two reports, two readings
The expert mandate asked not only about rights violations but also whether the campaign could meet the legal definition of genocide under international law. Here, the findings split.
Dalee Sambo Dorough, an Alaska-based lawyer, and Miriam Cullen, a law professor at the University of Copenhagen, concluded there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Kalaallit Inuit women were subjected to non-consensual contraceptive practices that violated multiple fundamental rights. Yet they stopped short of declaring genocide, noting that intent could not be established “on the basis of contraceptive practices alone.” Crucially, they added that genocidal intent by Denmark remained a “possible inference” that a court might establish based on other evidence outside their scope, such as the removal of Inuit children to be raised by Danish families. Their reasoning leaves open a pathway for future legal or historical inquiries to consider a broader pattern of policies rather than contraception in isolation.
On the other hand, Jonas Christoffersen, who used to be the director of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, and psychologist Jensine Nedergaard acknowledged that women were wronged in some way but maintained that the degree of the abuses could not be determined given the information at hand. They did not find any information that suggested that any authority and health official was trying to exterminate the population of Greenland, which is one of the critical criteria to establish the crime of genocide.
Official responses: From compensation to truth-seeking
In light of the reports, the government of Greenland took prompt steps to ensure that the subsequent steps would be geared toward truth-telling and reconciliation rather than blaming the wrongdoers. The government decided to form a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, an institution meant to extend the historical research and help heal the society. Prime Minister of Greenland Jens-Frederik Nielsen declared that the commission was going to pursue “genuine reconciliation” as its goal, meaning that it would prefer the restorative approach to the confrontational conclusion.
However, Greenland’s government is still cautious about overdoing the situation, since its representatives stated that, according to the available reports, they could not definitively establish if genocide occurred. Denmark’s reaction has been primarily political and concerned compensation of victims. Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen stressed that Copenhagen was going to “handle the political process together with the government of Greenland.” Health Minister Ida Auken also declared that Denmark was not going to wait for the legal reports to compensate those affected. It helped to pass a 300,000 DKK compensation plan with a substantial majority in parliament. This sum roughly amounts to $46,758 per each of the affected women.
Why consent mattered—and why it was absent
The heart of the scandal lies in consent: who defined it, how it was obtained, and whether it existed at all. The 2025 inquiry’s breakdown of IUD incidents—300 with no or unclear consent out of 410—suggests systemic failures in information, explanation, and voluntary agreement. Testimonies collected from 354 women describe insertions during routine medical visits, sometimes without clear explanation, and in some cases involving minors without parental consent. In a context where Danish authorities controlled health policy and where Inuit women occupied a structurally subordinate position, the threshold for meaningful consent was easily crossed.
This is not merely a historical footnote about medical ethics; it is a case study in how state power can operate through clinical routines, rendering coercion invisible until survivors speak. The experts’ emphasis on bodily and cultural integrity captures this dynamic: contraception, when imposed, does more than prevent pregnancy—it reshapes family formation, community demographics, and the lived experience of Indigenous identity.
The broader colonial context: Health, policy, and population
Though the reports have not consistently recognized the existence of genocide, there is still a much broader colonial history in which Denmark took great authority over the administration, economy, and social policy of Greenland. The use of contraception fits into the context of modernization initiatives, resettlement policies, and social programs that tended to see Inuit communities less as active planners for their future and more as objects to be planned for. That the experts observe in their report that genocidal intent can be recognized from other kinds of evidence, such as the removal of Inuit children to Danish families, hints at how control over reproduction and cultural assimilation can feed off one another.
This provides important context for understanding why this particular scandal carries resonance beyond the individual clinical encounter. For many Inuit people, this campaign against birth is not an exception but is connected to a longer history of policies in which control over who could be born, who would parent, and who belongs to the community was a crucial element.
Compensation and the limits of money as remedy
Denmark’s decision to pay 300,000 DKK to each affected woman is a significant political gesture, but it also raises questions about what compensation can and cannot achieve. Money can acknowledge harm, provide material support, and signal institutional responsibility. It cannot, on its own, restore lost years of fertility, undo the trauma of non-consensual procedures, or fully repair trust between communities and the state. That is why the parallel pursuit of truth—through testimony, archives, and public reckoning—matters as much as the payout.
The timing is also notable: compensation legislation is advancing even as the genocide question remains open, suggesting that political will to redress harm does not hinge on a single legal label. For survivors, this may be welcome; for historians and lawyers, it leaves a complex legacy in which moral and legal categories do not neatly align.
What the Truth and Reconciliation Commission could achieve
The pending Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Greenland is set to fill in where expert reports have been failing by providing a more cohesive story of the relation between the health policy and colonial rule, along with giving Inuit people the voice in defining harm and reconciliation. This kind of commissions has always been designed more to establish a basis of facts that would involve acknowledgment of the suffering and recommendations rather than attributing criminal responsibility. In the context of Greenland, this could include more archival research, collecting testimonies and drawing a clearer map of decision-making processes that took place in Copenhagen and their implementation in Nuuk and elsewhere.
The success of the commission will lie in its ability to gain access to documents, operate independently, and be ready for the uncomfortable results. At the same time, such commission would be able to draw a connection between the contraceptive campaign and other policies – education, child welfare, relocation, language. This could provide a more coherent picture of how Indigenous lives were controlled and limited.
Implications for Denmark, Greenland, and international law
The scandal carries implications beyond the Arctic. For Denmark, it is a test of how a former colonial power confronts historical harms without reducing them to technical compliance or one-off payouts. For Greenland, it is an opportunity to assert agency over its own history and to shape the terms of reconciliation on its own soil. Internationally, the case adds to a growing body of examples where reproductive control intersects with Indigenous rights, forcing courts and commissions to grapple with how intent, pattern, and impact interact in allegations of genocide and other mass violations.
The expert split on genocide is unlikely to be the final word. As archives open and testimonies accumulate, the legal and historical record may evolve. What is already clear is that Greenland’s forced birth control program violated women’s rights at scale, and that the path forward requires both material redress and a deeper truth.