Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen apologized on Wednesday to the victims of the forced contraception campaign implemented in Greenland until 1992, removing a major point of contention with the autonomous Danish territory.
"We cannot undo what happened, but we can accept our responsibilities," the head of government said in a statement.
"That is why I would like, on behalf of Denmark, to say 'sorry'."
This apology, requested by the victims for several years, was received positively.
"My clients are happy, it's a big step," Mads Pramming, the lawyer for nearly 150 of them who are suing the Danish state for violations of their human rights and seeking compensation, told AFP.
"It remains to be seen whether the state will acknowledge its legal responsibility and offer compensation. Until that happens, I won't open the champagne," he added.
"I'm happy, but it may be coming late," commented one of the survivors, Henriette Berthelsen. "It's generating a lot of thoughts," she said, without further comment.
– “Like rape” –
She was 13 when she was first fitted with an IUD, without any consent.
Between the end of the 1960s and 1992, out of some 9,000 women of childbearing age, more than 4,500 young Inuit women underwent the insertion of an IUD by the Danish authorities without their consent or, in the case of minors, that of their parents.
Many of them became sterile following this intervention and the majority suffer from physical or psychological after-effects.
The campaign aimed to limit births in the Arctic territory, which, although no longer a colony, remained under the control of Copenhagen, which was concerned about the high birth rate.
Since the first public testimony went unnoticed in 2019, tongues have been loosened and many women have shared their stories, denouncing the "colonization" of their bodies and demanding that Denmark recognize the extent of the trauma caused.
Naja Lyberth was the first woman to testify.
She was 13 or 14 years old – her memory is hazy – when she was ordered, along with the other girls in her class, to go to the doctor.
"His tool penetrated me to insert the IUD. It was very cold and like stabbing inside me. It was very, very violent," she told AFP last year.
“It was like torture, like rape.”
– “Dark Chapters” –
This issue is one of many sensitive subjects, such as forced adoptions or the forced placement of Greenlandic children in Denmark, affecting relations between the two territories.
"We know that there are also other dark chapters related to systemic discrimination against Greenlanders," Frederiksen said.
"My apology, on behalf of Denmark, is also an apology for those other failings for which Denmark is responsible, (by which) Greenlanders have been treated differently and inferiorly compared to other citizens of the kingdom," she said.
Nearly 150 victims have filed a lawsuit against Denmark and are awaiting trial.
The Danish apology comes as the United States is attempting, according to public television DR, to use the dispute between Denmark and Greenland to gain influence over the Arctic territory.
Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen also apologized, as the practice of forced contraception partially continued when Greenland took over responsibility for its health system.
The Danish head of government specified that possible compensation would be considered once the conclusions of an independent commission of inquiry had been submitted.
In 2022, the Danish government compensated six Inuit, who were separated from their families in 1951 and sent to Denmark to become Greenland's Danish-speaking elite, for a total amount of more than 200,000 euros.
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