Greenland Says Genocide Determination Inconclusive After Forced Contraception Inquiry

Greenland’s justice minister has stated that the government cannot conclude whether genocide was committed against the Inuit community, following an expert examination of a forced contraception program conducted in the 1960s and 1970s.

“We cannot say, on behalf of the government, whether there was genocide,” Justice Minister Marianne Paviasen told reporters. “This is something we can continue to debate.”

Two reports on the practice were released Friday, a year after Denmark apologized for the treatment of Inuit women and girls in its autonomous territory. Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen announced the establishment of a “reconciliation commission,” while Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen pledged that the two governments would work together on the issue.

Denmark has enacted a compensation law providing 300,000 Danish crowns (approximately £34,400 or $46,800) to each woman affected by the policy. National archive records show that between 1966 and 1970, 4,500 Greenlandic women and girls—some as young as 13—had intrauterine devices (IUDs) implanted under a birth-control program administered by Danish doctors. In recent years, many women have come forward stating they were fitted with the devices without their knowledge or consent. The practice was so widespread that it severely slowed Greenland’s population growth.

Prime Minister Frederiksen issued a formal apology last August to Greenlandic women and their families for “systematic discrimination.” In 2024, former Greenlandic Prime Minister Mute B. Egede characterized the practice as “genocide.” Under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, one definition of the crime includes “imposing measures intended to prevent births” within a “national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

The territory tasked a panel of four experts with determining whether human rights violations occurred and whether they met the legal definition of genocide. The panel fractured, however, with two members resigning to produce a separate report.

The two remaining experts—Alaskan lawyer Dalee Sambo Dorough and University of Copenhagen law professor Miriam Cullen—found that the rights of Inuit women in Greenland had been violated. However, they concluded they could not determine that genocide had taken place “on the basis of contraceptive practices alone.” They added that genocidal intent by Denmark remained a “possible inference” that a court might establish based on evidence outside their report’s scope, such as the removal of Inuit children to be raised by Danish families.

The rival report, produced by Jonas Christoffersen, former head of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, and psychologist Jensine Nedergaard, acknowledged that women had been wronged but could not establish the full extent of the mistreatment. They found no evidence that “any authority or health professional at any time had any intention of destroying the Greenlandic population.”

Reacting to the divergent findings on Friday, Justice Minister Paviasen noted the stark contrast between the reports, stating that one “says there was no genocide at all” while the other “says there could have been.”

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