Beginning in the 1960s, the Danish government conducted a program of forced sterilization on women and girls in Greenland, some as young as 12, according to a government report released Tuesday. The report was based on personal testimonies and records pertaining to 410 such cases.
This is only the latest in a series of recent revelations around the world about forced sterilization programs. As Hilary Matfess wrote last year, instances of forced sterilization occurred in Peru in the 1990s, in Canada in the 1930s and in the United States targeting Native American women in the 1960s and 1970s, among other places. Matfess looked at those past precedents and the obstacles to achieving accountability and justice for victims, but also cautioned against assuming that such abuses are a relic of the past, “as the conditions that fuel eugenic-driven forced sterilization programs are still at play.”
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