Greenland’s ‘Coil Campaign’ investigation: Victims continue to speak out on forced contraception

By Alma Fabiani
December 8, 2022 - Screenshot

“During the 1960s and 70s in Greenland, under the direction of Danish government officials—Greenland transitioned from a colony to a district of Denmark in 1953—thousands of Inuit women and girls were fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD), more commonly known as a coil, a T-shaped birth control device that is inserted into the uterus in order to prevent pregnancy.

Many of the women and young girls who underwent the procedure did so unknowingly or without consent. Now known as the ‘Coil Campaign’ or ‘Spiral Campaign’, the programme was first introduced to control Greenland’s birth rate and has since been described by Danish-Greenlandic politician Aki-Matilda Høegh-Dam as a form of “genocide.”

“Since the beginning of the mammoth investigation in September, victims have continued to come out, with one of the four most recent ones being a woman named Bebiane, who told the BBC that she believes she unknowingly had a coil inserted when she had an abortion at the age of 16, in the early 2000s.”

“These relatively recent experiences suggest the governmental investigation’s current scope—up until 1991—is too limited. “I would like that the investigation doesn’t stop with 1991, and that the investigation into giving contraception to women without their consent continues to the present day,” said Bebiane.”

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