Overview

• Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued an official apology on behalf of Denmark for nonconsensual IUD insertions carried out over decades in Greenland.
• Roughly 4,500 Inuit women and girls were affected between 1960 and 1992, representing about half of women of childbearing age at the time.
• Greenland’s Premier Jens-Frederik Nielsen also apologized, and both leaders noted cases were reported even after Greenland assumed health-system responsibility in 1992.
• Victims report lasting physical and psychological harm, with around 150 plaintiffs suing the Danish state as commissions continue their inquiries and consider remedies.
• The timing coincided with media reports of alleged covert U.S.-linked activity on the island, adding political sensitivity to the reckoning over colonial-era abuses.