Inuit Women Deserve the Full Truth About Greenland’s Forced Contraception Campaign

Denmark and Greenland have already acknowledged the violations and issued public apologies, but the experts said healing depends on a clear, accurate and undisputed account of what happened.

Thousands of Indigenous Inuit women and girls in Greenland endured forced contraception over decades in public care institutions, leaving physical and emotional wounds that UN experts say must remain central to efforts to establish the truth and provide justice. A dissenting report by two Danish members who withdrew from an expert group appointed by Greenland's government, Naalakkersuisut, has raised concerns that challenges to the historical record could weaken accountability and undermine the experiences of those affected.

Denmark and Greenland have already acknowledged the violations and issued public apologies, but the experts said healing depends on a clear, accurate and undisputed account of what happened. Their warning addresses the consequences of minimising wrongdoing or excusing those responsible, because compensation and reconciliation lose their meaning when the women's experiences are pushed aside, or the harm they suffered is diminished.

A disputed report puts accountability under scrutiny

The two former members belonged to a government-appointed expert group examining historical injustices against Inuit women and girls in Kalaallit Nunaat, the Indigenous name for Greenland. Their dissenting report concluded that there was no empirical basis for finding that Danish or Greenlandic authorities, including the chief medical officer, intentionally pursued systematic IUD insertion without consent during the period studied, or that any authority sought to restrict population growth.

UN experts raised concerns about that conclusion, stressing that an accurate historical record must take the women's lived experiences seriously. The disagreement carries consequences for survivors seeking recognition and redress, since decisions about responsibility and reparations depend on how the violations are documented and understood.

Women's accounts reveal lasting harm

During a 2023 visit to Denmark and Greenland, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples heard directly from Inuit women who described having intrauterine devices inserted without their knowledge or permission, with some of the procedures taking place when they were children. The Rapporteur's subsequent thematic report to the Human Rights Council documented serious, lasting physical and psychological consequences and called for affected women to have a meaningful role in investigations and accountability processes.

The experts placed these experiences within a wider history of colonial, assimilationist and population-control policies that have interfered with Indigenous women's reproductive rights across the world. They described harm reaching across generations, making the response a matter of individual justice and the well-being of families and communities whose lives were shaped by those policies.

Reparations must reflect what each woman endured

The experts welcomed official apologies and compensation measures but questioned the adequacy of standard lump-sum payments that do not account for differences in the severity of the violations. They urged Denmark to improve language access and culturally appropriate support for compensation applications, and to ensure that eligible Inuit women with disabilities are included, so access to redress does not depend on navigating barriers that overlook their needs.

Their call for justice extends beyond forced contraception to other reported forms of reproductive violence, including forced adoption and the removal of Inuit children from their parents without free, prior and informed consent. Denmark and Greenland were urged to address the full range of reported crimes, develop comprehensive reparations in consultation with affected women, reform institutions and introduce measures to prevent these abuses from happening again.

The experts credited Inuit women's courage with bringing the violations to public attention and called for truth-seeking and reparations processes that avoid forcing survivors to relive their trauma. Their message places women's dignity, voices and rights at the heart of decisions about justice, healing and reconciliation, giving those who endured the harm a meaningful say in how it is addressed.