Greenland to open truth commission over forced contraception of Inuit women scheme
Greenland is establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate the forced contraception of thousands of Inuit women by Denmark between the 1960s and 1990s. The move follows inconclusive expert reports on whether the program constituted genocide.
Why it matters
The commission addresses historical human rights abuses and colonial trauma, marking a significant step in the reconciliation process between Greenland and Denmark.
Greenland said on Friday it would establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Denmark's forced contraception of thousands of indigenous Inuits, after experts failed to agree on whether the scheme constituted "genocide."The forced contraception campaign is one of the darkest chapters in Greenland's history with its former colonial master Denmark.From the 1960s to 1990, more than 4,000 Greenlandic women were forced to wear a contraceptive coil, or intrauterine device (IUD), in the vast majority of cases without their consent or that of their parents if they were minors.Girls as young as 12 were affected, some of whom were never able to have children afterwards."We cannot say, on behalf of the government, whether there was genocide.
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