Greenland opposition seeks ICJ ruling on Denmark’s forced contraception genocide allegations

Greenland’s opposition parties have called for Denmark to be held accountable before the International Court of Justice over a decades-long campaign in which women and girls were fitted with contraceptive devices, often without their consent.

Siumut and Naleraq said on Friday that an international court should determine Denmark’s responsibility and assess whether the campaign could constitute genocide.

“An international ruling on Denmark’s state responsibility under the Genocide Convention must be made by the UN’s International Court of Justice,” Naleraq said.

The calls followed the publication of two reports examining Denmark’s contraception campaign in Greenland. At least 4,000 Greenlandic women and girls, some as young as 12, received intrauterine devices or contraceptive injections between 1966 and 1991, often without their consent or knowledge, according to a joint Danish-Greenlandic inquiry published in 2025.

‘It was a huge betrayal of the women’

Inger Platou, 70, was among those affected. She told Reuters that she was 20 when she went to hospital for what she understood to be a minor operation related to an infection in her pelvic area.

“When I came round, an IUD had been fitted without me being asked first,” she said, adding that she had not been informed about the potential consequences.

Four years later, Platou suffered an ectopic pregnancy which she said nearly cost her life. She later tried to have children but was unable to conceive, saying doctors told her that both of her fallopian tubes had been damaged.

“I had imagined my future with more children, but I wasn’t able to,” she said. “It has been difficult, and I envied my friends who were having children and starting families.”

Platou described what happened as a violation of women’s rights over their own bodies.

“It was a huge betrayal of the women,” she said. “We were treated like animals, expected to just do as we were told.”

Platou eventually became a mother by adopting two children.

Reports differ over genocide question

The two reports published on Friday found that administering contraception without valid consent breached women’s human rights, but differed over whether the campaign could legally constitute genocide.

Danish researchers concluded that it did not meet the definition of genocide, while a separate assessment by researchers from Canada and New Zealand said genocide “remains a possible conclusion”.

Greenland’s government said it could not itself determine whether genocide had taken place, while Justice Minister Mariane Paviasen Jensen said Denmark had committed clear wrongdoing by inserting IUDs without consent.

Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen has announced plans to establish a reconciliation commission, a proposal welcomed by Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

Denmark apologised in 2025 to women subjected to what Frederiksen called “systematic discrimination”.

On Thursday, Denmark also passed legislation providing compensation of 300,000 Danish crowns, around $46,800, to each affected woman.

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