Denmark’s dark history with Greenland: Children torn from their families and women forcibly fitted with IUDs

In the 1950s, around 20 Inuit children, aged between five and nine, from various villages in Greenland were taken from their families and sent to Copenhagen to learn Danish. The goal was not only to teach them the language of the mother country, but to train them as a small elite capable of governing their island and guiding it toward modernity. The brightest and most promising children were selected for this purpose. They spent two years in Denmark, and upon returning, some could no longer speak with their parents, having forgotten their native language. They returned to their country, but not to their villages; instead, they were placed in a kind of orphanage for further re-education, which lasted several more years.

Over time, many of these children became lost, turning to alcohol or begging on the frozen streets of Nuuk, uprooted and aimless. Others ended up marrying Danes. In September 2022, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen publicly apologized in front of six of these children, now elderly, the only ones still alive at the time. “What you were subjected to was terrible; it was inhumane, it was unfair, and it was heartless,” she told them,

Between the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Inuit women and girls were fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD) by Danish doctors that most of them knew nothing about. They were neither asked for permission nor informed about its purpose. Many of the women were under the age of 12. The objective, according to several studies, was to curb the population growth in Greenland, to prevent an escalating financial burden on Denmark. The case became known as the “Spiral Case,” after the shape of the coil, which some victims reported was quite painful. Many of these women had an IUD for years without knowing its purpose, and they never understood why they could not have children. The exact number of victims remains unknown. In September 2022, a joint commission consisting of Danish and Greenlandic scholars was formed to investigate the matter.

Every Greenlander knows these two cases. They also know the story of the fishermen from coastal villages who, in the 1970s, were almost forcibly relocated after their economy was devastated. They were moved to apartment blocks on the outskirts of Nuuk in an effort to reorganize fishing activities and make them more efficient. Disoriented and lost, many of these Inuit ended up turning to alcohol or suffering from depression.

The shared history between Greenland and Denmark is complex, and has left behind wounds that are difficult to heal. Until 1953, Greenland was, in fact, a Danish colony. From that year onward, it became a county of Denmark. In 1979, it gained autonomy, and in 2009, its powers were expanded to include all areas except international relations and defense. Donald Trump’s recent statements, in which he claimed that the United States needs to control Greenland for security reasons and suggested the use of force or economic pressure to achieve this goal, were received by Greenlanders as both a threat — fearing they might fall under Washington’s control — and an opportunity — seeing a chance to free themselves from Danish rule.

Rikke Ostergaard, a 48-year-old Danish sociologist who has lived in Greenland since she was five, is currently writing a doctoral thesis on the relationship between Danes and Greenlanders. When asked about the dynamic, she immediately responds, “Well, it is both good and bad.” She explains that she still senses a certain condescension from a segment of the Danish population toward the Inuit.

She gives two examples of what is happening in Greenland today that she believes illustrate the relationship: “First, when I was a child, we were separated in class. On one side were the Danes, on the other side were the Greenlanders. That’s gone now. But now, many Danish parents send their children to private schools, which cost money, and that creates the same division. Secondly, there was once a rule that Danish civil servants and employees were required to work in Greenland, which by law meant they were paid more than those born here, even if they did the same job. That was abolished, but now it still continues covertly.”

Most Greenlanders want independence, in part because of the wrongs they have suffered over the years. However, very few want independence now, as Denmark sends around €600 million ($618 million) annually to support much of the island’s social system, including medical care. This vast island, with 57,000 inhabitants and an area four times the size of Spain, presents significant logistical challenges for healthcare. It has one hospital in Nuuk, the Reina Ingrid, with more than a hundred beds, and four small health centers spread across the island. Patients needing treatment in Nuuk from remote villages are transported by plane or light aircraft, and if they are seriously ill, they are flown in by air ambulance.

If the hospital in Nuuk is unable to treat a patient’s condition — whether it’s a serious heart attack, a complicated birth, cancer, or another severe issue — the patient is flown to Copenhagen, either on a commercial flight or a medical flight. All the arrangements are managed by Greenland, but the costs are ultimately covered by the Danish state. The patient pays nothing.

This system is one of the reasons many on the island hesitate before calling for immediate independence. In fact, Greenland’s Prime Minister Múte Egede of the Inuit Ataqatigiit (Inuit People’s Party) recently stated during a press conference, when asked about the timeline for independence, that no date had yet been set. While the island is rich in oil, gas, gold, and iron, as well as rare minerals essential for electric car batteries and wind turbine construction, these resources are not yet being exploited in a way that could replace the millions in aid provided by Denmark each year. Currently, 95% of Greenland’s export profits come from fishing, which is the country’s main industry.

Nikkulaat Jeremiassen, president of the Greenland Fishermen’s Association, argues that Denmark, by often acting as an intermediary between fishermen and buyers, takes a profit that could remain on the island if Greenland were independent.

In any case, things are moving quickly. Last Friday, at 8 a.m., while children in Nuuk, dressed in polar fleece overalls, were walking down the street to school in -17°C temperatures, Thomas Emanuel Dans, an American investor and former adviser to Trump on Arctic affairs, was having breakfast at a central hotel. He had spent a few days in Greenland, where he held meetings on mining, fishing, and tourism. “There is so much to be done in this country. There are many opportunities,” he said.

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