28 August 2026

Greenland inquiry cites our submission on the contraception cases

Published 28 August 2026 · Independent Expert Group, Naalakkersuisut / Government of Greenland

The Independent Report into the Human Rights Aspects of Contraceptive Practices in Kalaallit Nunaat Since 1960, by Dalee Sambo Dorough and Miriam Cullen, draws extensively on the submission made to the Expert Group by Veronika Fikfak, Ula A. Kos and Edward Pérez. Our analysis of the European Court of Human Rights case law on consent, ill-treatment, positive obligations and remedies is cited throughout the report's chapters on discrimination, ill-treatment, and routes to redress.

The report examines contraceptive practices in Greenland since 1960, including the mass insertion of intrauterine devices in Inuit women and girls. It finds a reasonable basis to believe that doctors withheld the full range of contraceptive options from Inuit women and applied so-called "actively motivating techniques" to persuade them to accept the IUD, amounting to intersectional discrimination on grounds of race and sex. It further finds a reasonable basis to believe that contraception administered without valid consent caused physical and psychological harm amounting to inhuman and degrading treatment, and that Denmark breached both its duty to refrain from such treatment and its positive duty to prevent it.

The closing chapters set out routes to remedy — domestic proceedings, the European Court of Human Rights, and UN complaints mechanisms — alongside collective reparations, memorialisation and truth-telling, drawing on the experience of Peru and Canada. Our submission informs much of this discussion, including the analysis of pilot judgments and reparations.