Greenland’s spiral scandal: Denmark apologizes

Well, Lyberth was 14 years old when a Danish doctor in the Greenland city of Maniitsoq put a spiral in the uterus. “It felt like knife was being pushed into me,” says Lyberth in the “Spiral Campaigns” of the Danish broadcaster Dr.

All girls in Lyberth’s class were sent to the hospital in 1976, where they were used for pregnancy prevention. Her parents had not been informed. Just like Lyberth and her classmates, thousands of Greenlanders were laid out, especially in the 1960s and 1970s, spirals.

At that time, Denmark was responsible for health care in Greenland. Many of the women today tell that the intervention was done without their consent. On Wednesday, the Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen apologized to the Grönlanders concerned in the name of Denmark. “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility,” said Frederiksen, according to a message.

It was a Facebook post by Naja Lyberth from 2017 that got reporting on the Greenland women and the spirals rolling. In it, Lyberth described her experience in the Hospital in Maniitsoq in 1976. Since then, more and more Greenlanders have told similar experiences.

In 2023, the Danish and the Greenland government commissioned an independent commission to examine the spiral scandal. The Commission’s final report is expected in the course of September.

To understand how the scandal came about, you have to go back to 1953. At that time, Greenland, which was a Danish colony for more than 200 years, became part of the Denmark kingdom. The government in Copenhagen decides to modernize the Arctic island, which is 3000 kilometers away. Schools and apartments are built and Danish doctors are sent to Greenland to improve health care.

The better medical care in Greenland leads to better chances of survival for newborns. The many Greenland children, in turn, are expensive for the Danish state – kindergartens must be built and more Danish doctors must be sent to Greenland.

In order to stop this development, the Danish government started the so-called spiral campaign in 1966. In the first four years of the campaign alone, 4,500 spirals are used in Greenlanders. The government in Copenhagen estimates in 1969 that 35 percent of all Greenlanders in reproductive age was lodged in the contraceptive – and states that the number of births in Greenland has decreased.

Many of the Greenlanders with whom the broadcaster DR spoke found the use of the spiral to be traumatizing. Some felt that they had no choice. “I couldn’t fight it,” says well Lyberth, for example. “I was not brought up to contradict authorities.”

In addition, the spirals used in Greenland were much larger than the copper and hormone spirals that are used today. They consisted of plastic, were difficult to introduce and not suitable for women who have never born a child.

“It was hell. I had a foreign body in me for several years,” recalls well Lyberth, who was not yet sexually active when the plastic spiral was used at the age of 14. “The Danish state took my innocence to me,” she says to Dr.

The broadcaster reports that some of the girls and women did not even know that the contraceptives – for example during a gynecological examination – were used. According to the Danish Institute for Human Rights, some of the Greenland girls were only twelve when they got the spiral.

After the spiral scandal from the 1960s and 70s became known, women also spoke up who were used without their consent, after Greenland himself took responsibility for the healthcare system in 1992. For this, the Greenland head Jens Frederik Nielsen apologized to all those affected on Wednesday and promised them compensation.

Well Lyberth, together with 142 other Greenlanders, sued the Danish state for the violation of their human rights. The women each demand compensation of 300,000 Danish crowns (around 40,000 euros). The Danish government only wants to comment on the claims if the results of the investigation commission are available.