Greenland Women Sue Denmark Over Forced Teenage Birth Control
More than 100 women are seeking $6 million in compensation after being fitted with IUDs as teenagers
The Greenland town of Ilulissat, then known as Jacobshaven, in 1972. Thousands of Inuit women and girls were fitted with coils by the Danish government to curb population growth in its former colony.
Photographer: Tom Nebbia/Corbis Historical/Getty Images
Hedvig Frederiksen was 14 years old when her Danish headmistress sent the girls from her class to a hospital in Paamiut in Southwestern Greenland.
Sitting anxiously in the waiting room, Frederiksen had no idea why she was there. One by one her classmates’ names were called, and one by one they returned from the examination room crying and clutching their bellies.