IUD scandal: 171 Greenlandic women file for compensation in first month
One hundred and seventy-one Greenlandic women filed claims for compensation in the first month after applications opened over Denmark’s historic non-consensual contraception program, Denmark’s Patient Compensation Association (Patienterstatningen) has confirmed, according to the Ritzau news agency, as reported by Greenlandic broadcaster KNR.
The claims relate to what is known in Denmark and Greenland as the “spiral case,” a decades-long chapter in which young Greenlandic women and girls were fitted with intrauterine contraceptive devices, often without their knowledge or consent, under a campaign that began in the 1960s. The scheme now open for claims covers women fitted with a coil without consent up to and including 1991, and sets compensation at 300,000 Danish kroner (about $47,000) per woman.
Applications opened on July 1, and Trine Berner Madsen, secretariat head at Patienterstatningen, expects more to come before the window closes on September 1, 2028. Many women find it hard to relive the experience while describing it in an application, she said, and some need time, help or guidance before they apply.
The claims can’t be processed yet. Denmark’s health minister, Ida Auken, introduced legislation on June 25 to set up the compensation scheme. The bill was delayed by this year’s election and the government negotiations that followed, and is expected to take effect on September 1, 2026.
The deadline has drawn criticism of its own. Greenland’s human rights council warned in April that the cutoff is a problem, pointing out that doctors still find coils in women who never knew they had one.
The case spans the shifting lines of Danish-Greenlandic authority, covering both the years when Copenhagen ran healthcare in Greenland and the period after Nuuk took over the sector. Several women have spoken publicly about never consenting. Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s premier, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, both apologized over the matter last year.
