Denmark tried to reduce the birth rate in the Arctic territory, once its colony, during the 1960s.
ADVERTISEMENTSome were barely teenagers when they had an IUD - a form of birth control that can prevent pregnancy for up to 10 years - inserted without their consent.
However, on Monday, 67 women born in Greenland filed a request for compensation from Denmark. They are demanding around €40,200 each.
In the late 1960s, Cophagen implemented a contraceptive policy to limit births in the Arctic territory then supervised by Denmark, although it ceased being a colony in 1953.
A series of podcasts broadcast in spring 2022 by Danish radio and television DR revealed the scale of this campaign at a time when Denmark and Greenland, which acquired autonomous territory status in 2009, are exploring their past.
An inquiry commissioned into this policy, launched last year, must publish its conclusions in 2025. But the women want faster redress.
“We do not want to wait for the results of the investigation,” psychologist Naja Lyberth, who initiated the request for compensation, told AFP.
"We are getting older - the oldest among us, who had IUDs in the 1960s were born in the 40s, they are approaching 80," she explained. “We want to act now”
In the 1960s and 1970s, some 4,500 young Inuit underwent IUD insertion without their consent or that of their family.
A large number of women were unaware of wearing a contraceptive device and, until recently, Greenlandic gynaecologists found IUDs in women unaware of their presence, according to Lyberth.
“It is already 100% clear that the government has contravened the law, through human rights violations and serious abuses against us,” she added.
Lyberth claims the government will refuse their requests pending the results of the investigation - in which case the matter will be taken to court.
In 2022, six Inuit obtained apologies and compensation, more than 70 years after being separated from their families to participate in an experiment aimed at forming a Danish-speaking elite on the island.