In Greenland there is a rumor about the forced contraception of the “IUD campaign”

Between 1966 and 1970, 4,500 intrauterine devices (IUDs) were inserted without consent in women and girls in Greenland. A frightening figure that represents, at the timehalf of the female population in fertile age in the archipelago.

In The worldwe learn it the Danish government allegedly agreed in early June to launch an investigation on this aspect of its colonial past.

Birth control as a colonial tool

It is a documented colonial instrument: at the four corners of the globe, taking control of the uterus of menstruating people is a means of regulating colonized or oppressed populations. Thus, in the 20th century, in the United States or Canada, large numbers of Native American women were forcibly sterilized. In Réunion, between the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of abortions and sterilizations without consent were performed on patients while abortion was still prohibited in France.

In Greenland, which only became autonomous from Denmark in 1979, it was the Danish authorities who did so impose birth control, to “modernize” Greenland. According to the news site News from the high north :

“The official goal of the Danish campaign was to lower the birth rate in Greenland. The Danish authorities were concerned about the number of children born out of wedlock and mothers under the age of 20. The population increase was also a drag on the modernization of Greenland, which was becoming more expensive than the Danish state originally anticipated. “

This was the case with Naja Lyberth, whose testimony is cited in the columns of World, at the age of 14. In 1976, after a medical examination at school, she and all of her classmates were sent to the hospital for the insertion of an IUD. Their parents are not informed and it is impossible for them to refuse.

An investigation into the Danish government

After the testimonies of women who had been forced to wear an IUD from an early age, two reporters decided to investigate this “IUD campaign”. In a podcast released in May, Anne Pilegaard Petersen and Celine Klint return to this episode in Denmark’s colonial history.

According to The world, everywhere in Greenland, the highlighting of this story created a shock. Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam denounces a “genocide”. The word of those who have undergone this forced contraception spread through various media. In the press, for example, Britta Mortensen explains that she was silent for a long time out of shame. She today she saysit is time for the victims to get reparation.

Photo credit: Youtube screenshot / Britta Mortensen interview for AFP