Greenland's justice minister stated that the government is unable to reach a conclusion on whether genocide was committed against the Inuit community, following expert examinations of forced contraception practices in the 1960s and 1970s. "We cannot say, on behalf of the government, whether there was genocide," Marianne Paviasen told reporters, adding that it remains a subject for continued debate.
This statement comes after the release of two reports on the matter, a year after Denmark issued an apology for its treatment of Inuit women and girls in the autonomous territory. Greenlandic Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen announced that a "reconciliation commission" will be established, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen committed to government cooperation.
Denmark has enacted a compensation law, providing 300,000 Danish crowns (approximately $46,800) to each woman affected by the policy. National archives indicate that between 1966 and 1970, approximately 4,500 Greenlandic women and girls, some as young as 13, were fitted with intra-uterine devices (IUDs) as part of a birth-control program administered by Danish doctors. In recent years, many women have come forward alleging they received these devices without their knowledge or consent, a practice that significantly slowed Greenland's population growth.
Last August, Frederiksen formally apologized for the "systematic discrimination" experienced by Greenlandic women and their families. In 2024, a former prime minister of Greenland, Mute B Egede, characterized the practice as genocide.
Under the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, one definition of genocide includes "imposing measures intended to prevent births" within a specific group. Greenland tasked a panel of four experts to determine if human rights violations occurred and if these violations met the definition of genocide.
The panel, however, was divided. Two members resigned and produced a separate report. The remaining experts, Alaskan lawyer Dalee Sambo Dorough and University of Copenhagen law professor Miriam Cullen, concluded in their report that the rights of Inuit women in Greenland were violated. However, they could not definitively state that genocide had occurred based solely on contraceptive practices. They noted that genocidal intent by Denmark remains a "possible inference" that a court might establish, particularly when considering evidence outside their report's scope, such as the removal of Inuit children to be raised by Danish families.
A rival report, authored by Jonas Christoffersen, former head of the Danish Institute for Human Rights, and psychologist Jensine Nedergaard, acknowledged that women had been wronged but could not ascertain the full extent of the mistreatment. This report found no evidence suggesting that any authority or health professional intended to destroy the Greenlandic population.
Reacting to the divergent findings, Greenland's justice minister highlighted the stark differences between the two reports, noting that one suggested "there was no genocide at all" while the other indicated "there could have been."