By the end of 1970, roughly every second woman born in Greenland had a contraceptive device inside her body. Most had never been asked. Some didn’t even know it was there.
The device was an IUD, known in Danish as a “spiral.” From the 1960s to the 1990s, the Danish government implemented a family planning policy that fitted around 4,500 Inuit women and girls, many of them underage, with intrauterine devices without their consent. The program had a name, a budget, and a clear purpose. What it lacked, in case after case, was any meaningful conversation with the women it targeted.
The scale of what happened, and the silence that surrounded it for decades, is only now being fully reckoned with. A formal joint investigation by Denmark and Greenland, two government apologies, a landmark lawsuit, and a compensation scheme worth hundreds of millions of Danish kroner have all followed in the last three years. The women who lived with the consequences had been waiting much longer.
What the “Spiral Campaign” Actually Was
The official government campaign, carried out by Denmark for decades, aimed to control Greenland’s population growth by preventing women from becoming pregnant. In 1953, Greenland, which had been a Danish colony for more than 200 years, formally became part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The government in Copenhagen began a program to modernize the Arctic territory, building schools and housing and sending Danish doctors to expand health care. Improved medical care increased infant survival rates, leading to higher birth rates. Danish authorities saw that population growth as a financial problem.
Danmarks Radio, Denmark’s national public broadcaster, reported through its investigative podcast that the campaign was intended to reduce costs for Denmark in funding daycare institutions, schools, and health facilities in Greenland. The solution settled on was the IUD, known at the time as the Lippes loop – a large plastic device designed for adult women who had already given birth. Victims were often schoolchildren as young as twelve who were called out of class by teachers to undergo the procedure, without their consent or that of their parents. The devices doctors used were designed for adults but were inserted indiscriminately among age groups, despite several victims reporting excruciating pain, infections, and long-term medical complications.
By the end of 1970, 4,070 Greenlandic women had an IUD – approximately every second Greenlandic-born woman. The birth rate in Greenland fell sharply in the years that followed. Births in Greenland dropped about 50% in the early 1970s.
Parts of the campaign were also explicitly illegal under the law that existed at the time. In Greenland, it was illegal for doctors to give girls contraception without parental consent until 1970; after 1970, it was against the law for doctors to place IUDs in girls who were under 15 and had never been pregnant. The procedures continued anyway.
The Women Who Weren’t Told
The investigation that concluded in September 2025 drew on testimony from 354 women, who were between 48 and 89 years old when they spoke to authorities. Researchers detailed 410 cases of women being fitted with IUDs, including 349 involving health complications, based on personal testimonies, medical records, and historical documents. Among those 354 women, informed consent could only be documented in 47 cases – meaning in the vast majority of reported instances, no proper record of consent existed.
The testimonies describe a pattern that was repeated across schools, hospitals, and clinics throughout Greenland. Some women report that they, as school girls, had been taken to the hospital and had an IUD inserted without further explanation. Some underwent IUD insertions while seeking unrelated medical treatments, and others remained unaware of the devices in them for years. Gynecologists who later examined women for infertility would discover – to their own shock – that their patients had devices they’d never been told about.
Some of the women suffered immediate consequences such as abdominal pain, heavy bleeding, discomfort during intercourse, and infections. Victims describe complications ranging from painful periods and infections to having their uterus removed. The IUDs used were not appropriate for young, childless bodies. The largest available size was inserted even in girls who had never been sexually active.
The Greenland Birth Control Scandal and the Woman Who Finally Spoke Out
The Greenland birth control scandal remained largely buried until one woman decided to share her story online. Naja Lyberth is a Greenlandic psychologist and trauma specialist, based in Nuuk, who became the public face of the campaign for justice. In 1976, at the age of 13, after a routine medical examination at school in Maniitsoq, a doctor asked Lyberth to go to the hospital for an IUD insertion. In 2017, she was among the first people to publicly discuss the spiral campaign, writing on Facebook about her experiences.
In a widely circulated Facebook post, she described the lasting impact of what had happened to her and wrote: “I felt like Denmark had colonised my body.” Her testimony resonated across Greenland and Denmark, encouraging other women to come forward with similar stories. Lyberth founded a Facebook group for women sharing their traumatic IUD experiences. Many of these women faced fertility issues post-procedure.
In 2022, the “Spiralkampagnen” podcast released by Danmarks Radio revealed that young Greenlandic girls under the age of 15 were told to go to the doctor where they had IUDs inserted without informed consent – neither from themselves, and in many cases nor their parents – and that IUDs had been inserted in women giving birth without their knowledge. The disclosure sent shock waves through Greenlandic society and aggravated the already strained relations between Greenland and Denmark. In December 2022, Lyberth was named as one of BBC’s 100 Women for her advocacy work.
The Investigation and What It Found
In May 2023, Denmark and Greenland launched a formal investigation, later extended to January 31, 2026. The final report was released on September 9, 2025. Its findings confirmed what survivors had long been saying.
The September 2025 report, as covered by PBS NewsHour, documented 488 instances of forced contraception between 1960 and 1991. Girls as young as 12 were given IUDs. Many had not had their sexual debut. Nevertheless, the largest size IUD, the Lippes loop, was chosen in some cases.
The report’s authors said the practice may have violated Danish law and international human rights standards, but stressed that the courts must make the final judgment on whether the practice violated any laws. Legal scholars at Georgetown University argued in a February 2026 analysis that the campaign likely breached the European Convention on Human Rights, including its prohibition on inhumane and degrading treatment. The policy was described as a consequence of colonial legacies that translate into structural and systemic racial discrimination against the Inuit people. In numerous cases, it comprised inhuman and degrading treatment and was explicitly discriminatory, only affecting Greenlandic women.
The forced IUD program was not the only policy of its kind. The report situated the campaign within a wider history of Danish policies affecting Greenlandic families, including the removal of Inuit children from their parents for placement with Danish foster families, and controversial parental competency tests that led to forced family separations.
Apologies, Lawsuits, and Compensation
In 2024, a group of 143 Greenlandic women sued Denmark for forced contraception. The victims participating in the lawsuit demanded total compensation of nearly 43 million Danish kroner, the equivalent of nearly €5.8 million.
On August 27, the Danish government and Naalakkersuisut, the Greenland Self-Government, issued an official apology to all Greenlandic women who were victims of systematic discrimination during the birth control campaign. In late September, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen travelled to Greenland’s capital Nuuk to present a formal apology to victims in person. The Danish government acknowledged the “systematic discrimination” that occurred during the contraceptive campaign and recognized that these women had “experienced both physical and psychological harm.”
The compensation scheme that followed set a specific amount. Women who were given contraception against their knowledge or consent between 1960 and 1991 can apply for individual payouts of 300,000 Danish kroner, about $46,000, starting in April 2026. An estimated 4,500 women could be entitled to compensation.
The campaign “has had major consequences for Greenlandic women, who have suffered both physical and psychological damage, and which to this day affects perceptions of Denmark,” Danish Health Minister Sophie Løhde said.
Although the spiral campaign appears to have violated the European Convention on Human Rights, Denmark’s domestic actions may have reduced the prospects of victims successfully litigating at the European level. The convention’s subsidiarity rule prevents applications from individuals who have been “sufficiently redressed” domestically. Given the investigation, the official apology, and the compensation scheme, the European Court of Human Rights may consider these measures qualify as sufficient redress, effectively barring further international action.
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What This Means Now
The compensation payments represent one step in a reckoning that is still unfolding. While Denmark issued an apology and established a compensation scheme, those measures follow an individualistic approach that fails to address the collective harm inflicted upon the Inuit community. Human rights advocates and scholars at Georgetown University’s journal of international affairs have argued that community-level reparations and structural health reforms are needed alongside individual payments.
For the women now in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s who testified to the investigation, the apology came after decades of carrying the physical and psychological weight of what was done to them. Lyberth, reflecting on the patterns of harm she’s seen across survivors, noted: “It seems that the younger they were, the more complications and risk for infertility.” Many women who sought help for fertility problems years or decades later discovered for the first time that a device had been placed in them without their knowledge.
A government decided, in the name of cost savings, that the bodies of thousands of Greenlandic girls and women were available for intervention without their knowledge or consent. The investigation’s findings now stand as a documented record. The compensation fund is open. What 4,500 women were never given was the choice.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.
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