Nearly 1,000 Greenlandic women seek compensation for contraception without consent

Nearly 1,000 women in Greenland have applied for 300,000 kroner each from the Danish state over contraception they say they received without consent, DR reports. Among them are Rikke Egede and Margrethe Aaskov, who described their experiences at an information meeting in Maniitsoq.

Egede said a Danish doctor inserted an IUD against her wishes. It was removed the following day after she experienced heavy bleeding, she said, and she was unable to have children for six years afterwards.

Aaskov recalled receiving an injection of the contraceptive hormone Depo-Provera shortly after giving birth to her second child. A nurse told her that all women who had given birth were supposed to receive it and asked her to return three months later. Aaskov said she returned and received another injection, but felt unwell. When she refused a third injection, she recalled that a doctor pressed her to have an IUD inserted.

The Danish state compensation scheme allows women who can show that they were given contraception without consent to seek 300,000 kroner. Patienterstatningen, the patient compensation authority, has received 908 applications so far. Of these, 218 have been accepted and 12 rejected, while most remain under review.

Applicants must make it plausible that they received contraception without consent and submit a declaration on their honour. They do not have to obtain old medical records themselves, the authority says.

A five-person team from Patienterstatningen has travelled through towns and settlements along Greenland’s west coast to explain the scheme and help women apply. The nearly month-long trip began in Ilulissat and ends in Nuuk on Tuesday. Further meetings are planned in eastern and southern Greenland next spring. Application forms are available in Greenlandic and Danish.

Egede and Aaskov said they plan to complete their forms at home and hand them in the next day. Aaskov said the payment was not what mattered most to her: “It’s the feeling of being worth something.”