My Uterus was the Government’s Possession: Danish Neo-Colonial Control of Greenlandic People’s Reproductive Rights

By Julie Gjesing

In the spring of 2022, Naja Lyberth broke 46 years of silence when she told the Greenlandic magazine Arnanut that a Danish district doctor had forcedly fitted her and other girls from Maniitsoq with an intrauterine device (IUD) in 1976 – when they were 14 years old. The double-S, trapezoidal-shaped contraceptive device ‘Lippes Loop’ came in different sizes, yet only the largest one, Loop D, designed for multiparous women, was available in Greenland at the time. The foreign object ‘felt grotesquely misplaced inside me’, Lyberth said, ‘like knives penetrating me.’

What Lyberth didn’t know as she was lying on the medical exam table with both feet locked in the metal stirrups was that her imminent IUD insertion was but part of a comprehensible contraceptive program controlled by the Danish authorities seeking to diminish Greenland’s population growth.

When Greenland changed its status from a Danish colony to an administrative region within the Kingdom of Denmark in 1953, the former colonisers initiated a number of reforms with the aim of modernising the Greenlanders, an act often referred to as ‘danisation’. With Danish doctors at the wheel, the health care system significantly improved, resulting in sharp declines in both the stillbirth rate and the infant mortality rate.  

In just 15 years, the number of live births increased by nearly 80%, making Greenland the country with the highest growth rate in the world. Danish authorities soon realised that the success of their health reform had consequences; more citizens in Greenland meant bigger subsidies from the Danish state. Official figures show Denmark provided Greenland with DKK 140 million in 1960, and in 1965 the subsidy had increased to DKK 398 million. Danish authorities came up with a strategy to combat the imperilling growth rate. The weapon was the IUD.

According to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR), some 4500 girls and women were fitted with IUDs between 1966 and 1970, roughly half of the fertile women in Greenland. The procedures continued into the mid-1970s, but since the medical practices stopped registering IUD insertions after 1970, the total number is still unknown.

Many had IUDs inserted during abortions, surgeries or postnatal examinations, often unbeknownst to themselves. For younger girls like Lyberth, the procedures would take place during school hours with or without the parents’ consent.

In the investigative podcast Spiralkampagnen (‘The IUD Campaign’), a source describes how Danish doctors in Greenland often joked that if a woman consulted a doctor for a swollen finger, she would leave the doctor’s office with an IUD.

Danish doctors fitted IUDs left, right and centre to such a degree that 13-year-old Elisibanguak Jeremiassen accidentally ended up with two IUDs at once. She had her first IUD fitted in 1975 but immediately started struggling with ‘constant pain’ in her lower abdomen. After 12 months, she went back for a pelvic examination, but rather than finding the cause for her chronic pain, the doctor decided to insert yet another IUD into her womb. His reason was that he couldn’t locate the old one. Jeremiassen needed surgery to get the extra IUD removed. ‘My boundaries were crossed, and it hurt. My trust will never be the same,’ she said.   

Unsurprisingly, with the amount of IUDs being fitted each year, live births numbers dropped promptly. At the launch of the campaign in 1966, there were 1,781 live births in Greenland; in 1972, there were 948. ‘Call it what you want,’ the Greenlandic MP Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam said, ‘This is genocide.’

‘I feel lucky to be alive, because this could also have happened in my family, and some lost the ability to have kids completely’, the MP said. 

Since unearthing the dark truth about what took place in the medical practices at the hands of Danish doctors, Lyberth, who is now a therapist specialised in trauma, has established a Facebook group for other victims who want to share their IUD ordeals. It is in this forum that many have opened up to Lyberth about their IUD-related complications, ranging from severe bleeding to persistent pain, infection and infertility. ‘It seems that the younger they were, the more complications and risk for infertility’, she said. Some of the people in the group were 12 years old when they received an IUD.

Gynaecologist Aviaja Siegstad said that throughout the 1990s, she would often find IUDs in individuals who came to her office to be assessed for infertility. ‘They didn't know they had it. They'd tried to become pregnant for like 10 to 15 years without knowing what the problem was.’

Holga Platuu, who had an IUD inserted in 1973, suffered such severe complications and infections that she became sterile and underwent a hysterectomy as an adult. Although she can’t prove it, she strongly believes that the removal of her womb was the consequence of complications linked to the implantation of her IUD as a young teenager. 

Although Danish officials were pleased with the outcome of the involuntary birth control campaign, they were aware that the ethical challenges of the campaign were met with criticism from other United Nations countries. In DR’s podcast, two journalists get access to some notes that were written in preparation for a 1974 United Nations meeting. In the notes, the Danish officials tried to defend the campaign, arguing that since the Greenlandic Country Council didn’t take action against the campaign, their passivity was perceived as a silent acceptance. 

Following the meeting, the UN recommended that all countries respect the individual’s right to choose their own family planning, particularly in regard to previously subjugated individuals.

At the National Assembly in 2022, Greenland and Denmark agreed to launch an official two-year investigation into the extent of the contraception campaign, the decision-making process behind it and the lived experiences of those involved. The investigation is expected to conclude in May 2025. ‘We need to get it investigated to know whether or not it was actually a genocide,’ says Greenland’s Human Rights Council’s chairperson Qivioq Loevstroem, adding: ‘We don't want a whitewashed report.’

Naja Lyberth and 66 others have filed a complaint with the Danish government, demanding DKK 300.000 each in compensation, or about £34,350. Lyberth has said she doesn’t want to wait for the investigations to conclude before she receives justice. No matter what will come out of the investigation, it won’t change the physical and mental damage felt by the Greenlandic people. ‘The investigation will not uncover whether we’ve been subject to human rights violations. It also won’t uncover whether we are eligible for compensation.’

‘The oldest of us are over 80 years old. We can’t wait two more years. We need to act now while we’ve still got our strength and energy’, Lyberth said.