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Denmark has controlled Greenland since 1721. Indigenous peoples lived there for thousands of years before that. In 1953, the world’s largest island transitioned from colony to become part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Today its domestic affairs are considered self-rule, while Denmark is responsible for Greenland’s foreign policy, defense, and currency. But with regard to Greenland and the women who have lived there,
Denmark has had a dirty little secret centered on population control: a
relatively recent birth control practice that was forced on thousands of
women, for which the country only apologized in September 2025. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a group of independent researchers released a report that followed a two-year investigation. That investigation found that Denmark — from 1966 through 1992 — forced sterilization on more than 4,500 women and girls in Greenland, some as young as 12 years old. Many, if not most, were never told. In the name of population control, doctors implanted an intra-uterine device (IUD) in the unsuspecting patients.
Revelations of this birth control program only came to light in 2022 through a podcast called Spiralkampagnen. While the revelations first emerged three years ago, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, only issued an apology to Greenland in the Fall of 2025. She said, “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility…On behalf of Denmark, I would like to say sorry," while granting that the women and girls injured by the program had "experienced both physical and psychological harm." Outraged critics of the program described it as “systematic discrimination.” The CFR said that to compile its report, researchers took testimony from 410 cases, 349 of which involved health consequences for the affected women. Hundreds of the victims were from Greenland’s Indigenous population, but the program impacted over 4,000 women and girls in total. While the researchers revealed that patients had the IUDs implanted without consent, in some cases women and girls received injections that left them infertile. Denmark controlled Greenland’s healthcare sector until 1992. Now, the authors of the investigation’s report have called for authorities to consider whether this pattern of abuse violated Danish and human rights law. Lawyers for 143 women filed a lawsuit over the program. Reports are that 138 of the plaintiffs were minors when they were sterilized. Last month, the Associated Press reported that Denmark agreed to “compensate thousands of Indigenous women and girls in Greenland over cases of forcible contraception carried out by health authorities over decades starting in the 1960s.” The Danish health ministry said “women who were given contraception against their knowledge or consent between 1960 and 1991 can apply for individual payouts of 300,000 Danish kroner (about $46,000)” starting in April of this year. This program in Greenland is not the last time Denmark has found a way to use ghoulish birth control practices to address a societal issue. In Denmark today, the number and proportion of people with Downs Syndrome are vastly lower than other countries. You might think that Denmark has found a cure for Downs, but that’s not the case. Instead, the country has instituted universal screening among pregnant women for early detection of Downs Syndrome among their babies. In 2019, in a country of over 6 million people, only 18 children were born with Downs in Denmark. This demonstrates the dramatic impact abortion has had on that population. The average number of babies born with Downs at present is roughly 21-34 per year. Pundits, myself included, have been having a little fun with the prospect of the U.S. taking control of Greenland at the expense of such a small country as Denmark, but I’m not laughing now. Stories like these provide proof that even a small country can foster the worst kind of inhumanity, and for that reason alone, it should be taken seriously. |
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