The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen apologized to Inuit women, who unintentionally got a spiral between 1966 and 1975, because Denmark wanted to slow down the population growth in Greenland. That report Danish media Wednesday.
“We cannot change what happened. But we can take our responsibility. That’s why I want to say on behalf of Denmark,” I am sorry, “the prime minister said The Danish TV2.
Last March, 143 indigenous residents of the island complained, which is now a somewhat autonomous part of the Danish Kingdom, the Danish state because they think their human rights have been violated. In the coming September, a research report on the issue is expected to be published.
The Greenlandse Governor Jens-Frederik Nielsen says in conversation with TV2 that he is satisfied with the apologies, but that they could also be the least what Denmark could do. He also apologizes on behalf of his own government for abuses after 1992, when Greenland was given control of his own health care.
According to The BBC the abuses with unwanted spirals also continued after 1975. For example, a Greenland woman told the broadcaster that in 2014 she received a contraceptive treatment without permission.
‘Secret influence operations’
Danish media find the timing of Prime Minister Frederiksen striking. On Wednesday, the Danish public broadcaster DR reported on the basis of anonymous sources that three Americans, who would have ties with American President Donald Trump, have carried out secret influence operations in Greenland. The operations would be intended to drive a wedge between Greenland and Denmark. Trump threatened earlier that he wants to incorporate the island. The Danish government has called on the American diplomat Mark Stroh because of the unveiling.
Because the Spiral issue evokes severe emotions in Greenland, the Danish government probably did not want to wait for months in silence for the results of the research report, says Danish political journalist Hans Redder at TV2. “Because in the meantime, the case could be used by, for example, the United States, to distribute Greenland and Denmark.” The prime minister denies to Danish media that the apologies are a result of the research story about the Americans.
In 2021, the Social Democratic Frederiksen also offered apologize on behalf of Denmark To the Groenlanders because of a scandal with 22 Greenland children in 1951. The Danes at the time to remove the children from their families, so that they could be trained in Denmark as a Danish -speaking elite who in the future had to serve as a lighting example for other Groenlanders. “Hartless” and “inhuman,” the Prime Minister concluded.
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