Danish PM moves to 'reconciliation'

DANISH Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has arrived in Denmark’s autonomous territory Greenland for a ceremony yesterday to apologise in person to the victims of a forced contraception programme that Copenhagen ran for more than three decades.

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DANISH Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen during a press conference.

(AFP)

After landing, Frederiksen said in a post to social media that the apology constituted an “important marking” of a “dark chapter in our shared history”.

“It will be a very important moment for these women, obviously, but also for society as a whole,” Aaja Chemnitz, an MP who represents Greenland in the Danish parliament, said.

“It’s a second step in the reconciliation process after first announcing the apology” in late August, she said.

A special ceremony in Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, was to begin at 2pm.

From the late 1960s until 1992, Danish authorities forced around 4,500 Inuit women, around half of all those of childbearing age, to wear a contraceptive coil - or intrauterine device (IUD) - without their consent.

The aim was to reduce the Inuit birth rate.