Reports split over whether forced contraception of Greenlandic women and girls constituted genocide

Nuuk, Greenland (AP) — Two investigations into the compulsory contraception of numerous Greenlandic women and girls by Danish health officials spanned decades yielded conflicting conclusions regarding whether this amounted to genocide. The Greenlandic government, which commissioned the inquiry, unveiled the reports on Friday, but declined to disclose if its leaders concluded a genocide had occurred.

The government instructed the authors to adhere to the United Nations’ 1948 genocide convention definition, which encompasses "taking measures intended to prevent births within the group."

The disclosures, dubbed the "spiral case," have stirred controversy in both Denmark and Greenland. Over 350 Greenlandic Indigenous women and girls, some as young as 12, had previously alleged they were forcefully administered contraception by Danish health authorities. Denmark confirmed that over 4,000 women and girls, constituting roughly half of the fertile population in Greenland during the period, received IUDs between the 1960s and the mid-1970s.

The Inuit victims, many of them teenagers at the time, were not informed about the procedure or did not grant their consent. The alleged objective was to curb population growth in Greenland by hindering pregnancies.

The instances transpired between the 1960s and the early 1990s. Greenland assumed control over its healthcare programs starting January 1, 1992. The Danish government on Thursday sanctioned payouts of 300,000 Danish kroner (approximately $46,500) to each victim and formally apologized last year. Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen pledged the establishment of a reconciliation commission, a move that Nielsen endorsed in a statement on Friday.

On Friday, the Greenlandic government accepted findings from one of the reports, stating that an expert found the second report, which definitively concluded a genocide had not taken place, did not meet recognized scientific standards. The authors of the rejected report wrote, "There is no empirical evidence to assume that any Danish or Greenlandic authority, or any individual healthcare professional, at any time had any intention of destroying the Greenlandic population or a significant proportion of it."

They conceded, "There was no genocide." However, the accepted report did not decisively rule out the possibility of a genocide. The authors posited that further investigation encompassing other Danish practices impacting Greenlandic children and families was required. The authors did not, in contrast to the other report, definitively state that a genocide did not occur.

They posited that it is challenging to envision circumstances where an attempt to significantly diminish the population of a single ethnic group could not be construed as an intent to destroy, in part, that ethnicity.