PM to apologise to victims of Greenland forced contraception

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen was set to visit Denmark's autonomous territory Greenland yesterday to apologise in person to the victims of a forced contraception programme that Copenhagen ran for more than three decades.

- 

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen steps off an airplane after she landed at Nuuk airport in Greenland, on Monday.

(AFP)

"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, told AFP.

"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 local time.

From the late 1960s until 1992, Danish authorities forced around 4,500 Inuit women, around half of 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.