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	Denmark’s leader apologizes to Indigenous girls and women in Greenland for forced contraception by Associated Press, agencies   25 Sep. 2025   At age 13, Katrine Petersen was fitted with a contraceptive device by Danish doctors without her consent. They fitted her with an intrauterine contraceptive device, commonly known as an IUD, or coil.   Now 52 and living in Denmark, Petersen recalled being told she had been fitted with the device before leaving the hospital. “Because of my age, I didn’t know what to do,” she said tearfully. “I kept it inside me and never talked about it.”   Petersen said her trauma led to “anger, depression, and too much to drink,” as she suppressed memories of her experiences and didn’t speak about it with doctors. Later in life, after she married, she was unable to have children.   At a ceremony in Greenland ‘s capital of Nuuk on Wednesday, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, apologized to Greenlandic Indigenous girls and women like Petersen who were given invasive contraception by the Danish health authorities against their will in cases dating back to the 1960s.   “Today, there is only one real thing to say: Sorry,” Frederiksen said, after Greenlandic counterpart Jens-Frederik Nielsen delivered a somber address in Greenlandic. “Sorry for the wrong that was done to you because you were Greenlanders. Sorry for what was taken from you, and for the pain it caused.”   “Many of you have been fighting for years for justice and for us to listen, for us to take responsibility, and we’re doing that now: Denmark and Greenland together,” Frederiksen said, lamenting “a chapter in our shared history that should never have been written. On behalf of Denmark. Sorry,” she said.   Last month, Denmark and Greenland published apologies for their roles in the mistreatment of the women and girls just ahead of the publication of an independent investigation into the abuse.   Greenland, which remains part of the Danish realm, was a colony under Denmark’s crown until 1953, when it became a province in the Scandinavian country. In 1979, the island was granted home rule, and 30 years later, Greenland became a self-governing entity.   The forced contraception of Indigenous women and girls was part of centuries of Danish policies that dehumanized Greenlanders and their families.   The policies included the removal of young Inuit children from their parents to be given to Danish foster families for re-education and controversial parental competency tests that resulted in the forced separation of Greenlandic families.   An independent investigation, published earlier this month, found Inuit victims, some 12 years old and younger, were either fitted with IUDs or given hormonal birth control injections. They were not told details about the procedure, nor did they give their consent.   Some described traumatic experiences that left them with feelings of shame as well as physical side effects, from pain and bleeding to serious infections.   While the report covered the experiences of 354 women who spoke with investigators, Danish authorities say more than 4,500 women and girls received IUDs between the 1960s and mid-1970s.   “Of course, I’m thinking about all the women who were treated like I was,” said Petersen, who had her IUD removed earlier this year, after not speaking about her experiences for over 30 years. “I feel with my fellow women from this episode of our life.”   The alleged purpose of the forced contraception was to limit population growth in Greenland by preventing pregnancies. Greenland took over its own health care programs in 1992.   Kirstine Berthelsen, 66, who now lives in Copenhagen, believes she was 14 when she was fitted with an IUD in Greenland. She recalls being taken to a hospital, but not being given a reason why. Later, she remembers she was in “endless pain.”   At 34, she gave birth to a son, but believes two subsequent failed pregnancies were a result of complications caused by the contraception.   28 Aug. 2025   Denmark and Greenland on Wednesday officially apologized for their roles in the historic mistreatment of Greenlandic Indigenous girls and women, including forced contraception, in cases that date back to the 1960s.   Jens-Frederik Nielsen, the prime minister of Greenland, said the issue represented “a dark chapter in our history.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that although the past could not be changed, “we can take responsibility.”   Nearly 150 Inuit women last year sued Denmark and filed compensation claims against its health ministry, saying Danish health authorities violated their human rights when they fitted them with intrauterine contraceptive devices.   Women — including many who were teenagers at the time — said they were not told details about the procedure and did not give their consent.   “We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility,” Frederiksen said. “That is why I would like to say, on behalf of Denmark: Sorry.”   Frederiksen said her apology also included Denmark’s systematic discrimination and other failures and mistreatments against Greenlanders “because they were Greenlanders.” She acknowledged that the forced contraception led to physical and psychological harm.   Nielsen said the government of Greenland, which took over control of its health sector from Copenhagen in 1992, had acknowledged its own responsibility in the forced contraception cases and plans to award compensation to the victims.   “Far too many women were affected in a way that left deep imprints on lives, families and communities.. I feel for the women and their loved ones. And I share in their sorrow and anger. It’s sad that an apology only comes now — it’s too late”, he said.   Mads Pramming, a lawyer representing the women, welcomed the apology but said the case was far from over. What matters is whether the government recognizes that the women’s human rights were violated and offers compensation, he said.   “Today they decided to make an apology, to apologize formally. And that’s a big thing, I think,” he said. “But they haven’t yet said anything about the lawsuit.”   He added that he was hopeful the apology represented the start of an attempt to repair relations between Denmark and Greenland.   Dwayne Menezes, managing director of the Polar Research and Policy Initiative, said the case highlights centuries of Danish policies that dehumanized Greenlanders and their families.   The policies included the forced contraception, as well as the removal of young Inuit children from their parents to be given to Danish foster families for re-education and controversial parental competency tests that resulted in the forced separation of families.   He said that while most people believe colonialism and its abuses occurred in the “distant past,” the victims of the forced contraception are still alive.   “If we don’t recognize the important lesson this teaches us, we will not recognize in time the manifestations and recurrences of such divisive and dehumanizing policies when they resurface,” he said.   In 2020, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen apologized to Greenland children who were forcibly taken to Denmark in 1951 in a failed social experiment.   The plan was to modernize Greenland and give children a better life, but it ended with an attempt to form a new type of Inuit by reeducating them and hoping they would later return home and foster cultural links.   We “apologize to those we should have looked after but failed,” Frederiksen said, adding that “the children lost their ties to their families and lineage, their life history, to Greenland and thus to their own people.”   http://iwgia.org/en/kalaallit-nunaat-greenland.html http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5431add1-visit-denmark-and-greenland-report-special-rapporteur-rights
	Australia's first Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry delivers its final report by Yoorrook Justice Commission, agencies   July 2025   After more than four years and over 1,300 submissions, Australia's first Indigenous-led truth-telling inquiry has handed down its final report.   It has found the First Peoples of Victoria have endured crimes against humanity and genocide since the beginning of colonisation in Victoria — and they are still being impacted by systemic injustice today as a result.   The Yoorrook Justice Commission's report presents a confronting account of a history long suppressed. It outlines how, since colonisation in 1834, "mass killings, disease, sexual violence, exclusion, linguicide, cultural erasure, environmental degradation, child removal, absorption and assimilation combined to bring about the near-complete physical destruction of First Peoples in Victoria".   The Commission found that by 1901, just 5 per cent of the pre-colonisation First Peoples population remained, the result of "a coordinated plan of different actions aimed at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups".. "This was genocide," the report states.   The report details deaths stemming from 50 massacres recorded between 1831 and 1854, in which at least 978 Aboriginal men, women and children were killed.   "Once the land had been fenced, surveyed and renamed, attention turned inwards to the bodies and lineages of those who remained."   "The colony's preoccupation shifted from Aboriginal land to Aboriginal blood," the report stated.   In 1886, the Aborigines Protection Act (Vic) was imposed "as a mechanism for the disappearance of Aboriginal people under the ongoing pretence of a regime of 'protection'." "The colony had decided that First Peoples would need to be made to vanish."   The inquiry also found the legacy of colonisation lived on and was being experienced by Aboriginal Victorians first-hand.   "First Peoples in Victoria have been consistently excluded from opportunities to generate wealth," the report says.   "Colonial systems prevented First Peoples from participating in economic life and wealth creation, including through education, employment opportunities and owning property."   It says these current economic disparities and barriers to First Peoples' prosperity are a direct legacy of "colonial practices and state-sanctioned exclusion".   The commission's Truth be Told documents government policies that forced Aboriginal peoples onto missions and reserves where traditional practices were banned. It examined the legislation that allowed children to be forcibly removed from their families and their culture.   Yorta Yorta man Ian Hamm was separated from his family when he was three weeks old under these government policies and gave testimony to the commission.   "It can only be classed as the deliberate actions of trying to completely destabilise the presence of a people from the place they have always been," he told ABC News. "Not just destabilise them, but effectively proactively wipe them out."   The report also highlighted the resistance of Aboriginal people: "They held on to one another, to their languages, to Country. In a time when the world around them insisted on their disappearance, survival became the ultimate resistance."   In the report's foreword, Yoorrook Chair Professor Eleanor Bourke AM wrote: "Our lands were taken, and with them, something deeper: the essence of culture, and the ability to continue traditional practices and maintain identity. "Death, violence, disease, dispossession and government control changed the landscape."   Jill Gallagher, a Gunditjmara woman and Chief Executive of VACCHO, told the ABC the finding of genocide was indisputable.   "We don't blame anyone alive today for these atrocities, but it is the responsibility of those of us alive today to accept that truth — and all Victorians today must accept, recognise and reconcile with these factual findings," she said.   Commissioner Travis Lovett described the report as necessary reading. "For the first time, we as Aboriginal People have held the pen and told our truths, in our words. "This official public record has the power to change forever how people learn about the true history of this state".   The treaty commissioners called on the Victorian government to provide redress for injustices that occurred during and as a result of invasion, including the loss of traditional lands, waters and natural resources. Redress should take the form of monetary compensation or other financial benefits, the report found.   The inquiry has recommended the government use a treaty framework to "provide redress for injustice which has occurred during and as a result of the colonial invasion and occupation of First Peoples' territories".   That included redress for "all consequent damage and loss, including economic and non-economic loss for genocide, crimes against humanity and denial of freedoms" plus interest, and could also include initiatives like tax relief.   Among the other recommendations is a call for Victoria's First Peoples' Assembly to be made permanent and given decision-making powers.   The First Peoples' Assembly is a democratically elected body that has existed in Victoria since 2018 and is currently tasked with negotiating a state-wide treaty in Victoria.   The inquiry has also recommended enhanced opportunities around land rights for First Nations groups in Victoria.   This could include redress in the form of land grants for the families of Aboriginal soldiers who were denied land parcels after fighting for Australia in World War I and World War II. It could also include strengthening First Peoples' rights to land through treaty, which could mean tax exemptions for First Peoples on natural resources, or transfers of rights or entitlements on Crown lands.   It also called for more markers and memorials that feature Aboriginal perspectives at places like massacre sites, and more Aboriginal place names.   The commission also called for ongoing truth-telling initiatives, including at universities, and more funding and oversight to ensure better health, housing and educational outcomes for Victoria's First Peoples.   Co-chair of the First Peoples Assembly Ngarra Murray said the work of Yoorrook had been ground breaking.   “For the first time, our peoples have had our stories truly heard and valued through a process led by First Peoples, grounded in our culture and lore,” she said. “Yoorrook has woven the threads of individual First People's experiences together into a rich account of our collective history and, for the first time, many non-Aboriginal Victorians would have learnt about this shared history because of Yoorrook."   Former co-chair of the First Peoples' Assembly and Taungurung man Marcus Stewart said; "The act of genocide did occur on our shores and in particular did significantly impact First Nations people here in Victoria".   "When you start piecing together the evidence of how this occurred — the systemic nature in which it was, I think it's important for Victorians and Australians more broadly to understand this is part of our history."   Chair of the First Nations Foundation and Yorta Yorta man Ian Hamm said the report was "a formal acknowledgement of what Aboriginal Victorians already knew".   "To see that evidence as factual and undisputed brings you a feeling of, I won't say relief, but it brings a sense of, 'Finally, at last our story is being told,'" he said.   "Look at it with a spirit of generosity, look at it with a spirit of hope, look at it with a spirit that this will ultimately make Aboriginal people have a better future and make a greater and better contribution to Victoria as a whole."   Federation of Victorian Traditional Owners interim chief executive Kaley Nicholson said the Victorian government needed to "commit to respectful and resourced partnership with Traditional Owners of Country to support our communities to set the directions of a more just future”.   Since 2021, the Yoorrook Justice Commission has been tasked with investigating the past and ongoing impacts of colonisation in Victoria.   The findings of the reports were informed by 67 days of public hearings, testimony from over 200 witnesses, and input from more than 2,000 people — including 1,500 First Peoples. Yoorrook received over 1,300 written submissions, engaged more than 9,000 individuals, reviewed nearly 10,000 government documents, and took part in over 400 community events.   The handing down of Yoorrook's final report comes as the Victorian state government continues negotiations with the First Peoples Assembly of Victoria on a statewide treaty.   CEO of Reconciliation Australia Karen Mundine said: "When we know history, when we understand the injustices that happened and existed, it's really for us to do something with that knowledge to realise better outcomes for First Nations peoples."   Co-chair of the First Peoples’ Assembly, Rueben Berg, said Yoorrook’s final report revealed the wide-ranging impact of colonisation and how treaty could underpin change.   “Truth and treaty go hand-in-hand,” the Gunditjmara man said. “Treaty will acknowledge our shared history and be an agreement between First Peoples and the Victorian government on how we move forward together to help right past wrongs,” he said.   “Victorians know that we can’t keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. When it comes to issues facing First Peoples, we need a different approach, one that draws on the expertise of First Peoples to design and deliver practical solutions to local challenges.”   http://www.yoorrook.org.au/ http://www.yoorrook.org.au/reports-and-recommendations/reports http://apo.org.au/node/331283 http://www.firstpeoplesvic.org/news/historic-truth-telling-report-demonstrates-treaty-need/ http://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/latenightlive/yoorrook-report-genocide/105504722 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03-24/truth-yoorrook/105090138 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-10/victorian-treaty-model-for-other-states-and-territories/105751796 http://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/first-australians   * Federal Court rules Australian government doesn’t have a duty of care to protect Torres Strait Islanders from climate change, first nations people vow to continue to fight for their rights:   http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/15/torres-strait-island-landmark-climate-case-dismissed-federal-court http://theconversation.com/federal-court-rules-australian-government-doesnt-have-a-duty-of-care-to-protect-torres-strait-islanders-from-climate-change-259999 http://www.hrlc.org.au/case-summaries/un-human-rights-committee-finds-australia-violated-torres-strait-islanders-human-rights-over-climate-inaction/ http://www.openglobalrights.org/challenges-of-climate-compensation-non-economic-loss-and-damage http://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-30/indigenous-class-action-against-commonwealth-work-for-the-dole/105831704 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-29/600-aboriginal-deaths-in-custody-since-the-royal-commission/105567164 http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/aug/01/uluru-dialogue-statement-closing-the-gap-garma-festival http://www.coalitionofpeaks.org.au/media/new-closing-the-gap-data-confirms-what-works-partnership-and-community-control http://www.coalitionofpeaks.org.au/independent-review-of-closing-the-gap Visit the related web page
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