Indigenous women in Greenland sue Denmark over involuntary contraception in the 1960s and 1970s

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — A group of Indigenous women in Greenland has sued Denmark for forcing them to be fitted with intrauterine contraceptive devices in the 1960s and 1970s and demanded total compensation of nearly 43 million kroner, their lawyer said Monday. Danish authorities say as many as 4,500 women and girls — reportedly half of the fertile women in Greenland — received coil implants between the 1960s and mid-1970s. “The oldest of us are over 80 years old, and therefore we cannot wait any longer,” one of the women, Naja Lyberth, told Greenland public broadcaster KNR. We “apologize to those we should have looked after but failed,” Frederiksen said, adding that “the children lost their ties to their families and lineage, their life history, to Greenland and thus to their own people.” Greenland, which is part of the Danish realm, was a colony under Denmark’s crown until 1953, when it became a province in the Scandinavian country.