NUUK, Greenland \u2014 Native Greenlander Amarok Petersen was 27 years old when she learned the gut-wrenching truth about why she couldn\u2019t have children \u2014 and that Denmark was to blame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Suffering from severe uterine problems, a medical doctor discovered an IUD birth control device in her body that she didn\u2019t know she had.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Danish doctors had implanted it when she was just 13 as part of a population control program for thousands of native Greenlandic girls and women.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI will never have children,\u201d Petersen told The Post, with tears of anger and sorrow welling in her eyes. \u201cThat choice was taken from me.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the government of Denmark officially apologized<\/a> last year for decades of forced sterilization of Indigenous women and girls, the horrific mistreatment has cast a long shadow on the island that has become the center of an international ownership fight.<\/p>\n This week, the Danes hosted European troops for military exercises on Greenland, asserting they are protecting the island from outside powers \u2014 particularly the United States. But for many Inuit, Denmark itself has long been the real threat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Danes don\u2019t see us as humans,\u201d Petersen said at a local Inuit restaurant overlooking Nuuk\u2019s famous fjords. \u201cThey think we\u2019re too expensive, too small a population. But they take our land, our children, our lives and expect thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n Amarok Petersen is one of thousands of Greenlandic women unable to have children after learning Danish doctors implanted an IUD birth control device in her womb as a child. Caitlin Doornbos\/NY Post<\/p>\n Even in adulthood, medical decisions were made without Petersen\u2019s consent. Plagued with problems after the IUD, she had repeated surgeries for unexplained pain. It wasn\u2019t until years later that doctors informed her that her fallopian tubes had been removed in one of the operations in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n Her family also suffered under Denmark\u2019s so-called \u201cLittle Danes experiment,\u201d in which Greenlandic children were forcibly sent to Denmark for adoption or institutional care \u2014 often permanently separated from their families, she said.<\/p>\n The program, which ran from the 1950s through the 1970s, was part of Denmark\u2019s broader effort to assimilate Greenlandic children<\/a>, often without parental consent.<\/p>\n It happened to her mother\u2019s brother, Petersen said. Other relatives were subjected to medical experimentation, she added.<\/p>\n \u201cThey wanted us smaller,\u201d she said. \u201cEasier to manage.\u201d<\/p>\n Danish Major General Soren Andersen walks with other soldiers as they participate in a military exercise held in Nuuk, Greenland to demonstrate that Europe will \u201cprotect\u201d the country from the US. via REUTERS<\/p>\n Denmark announced in December compensation for victims of forced sterilization, but Petersen called the payments another insult. The women are being offered about $46,000 in reparations.<\/p>\n As the United States renews interest in Greenland \u2014 with President Trump recently expressing a desire to buy the island \u2014 Danish officials have repeatedly emphasized that \u201cGreenland is not for sale.\u201d But many Greenlanders argue that slogan masks a deeper truth: Denmark still governs Greenland, not Greenlanders themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cThey think we are worth pennies,\u201d she said. \u201cThey destroyed generations, and now they say, \u2018Here \u2014 be quiet.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Greenland is for Greenlanders\u2019 \u2014 but controlled by Denmark<\/p>\n Greenlanders interviewed by The Post said they are not ready to swap Denmark for US ownership, as Trump has prioritized; they want independence after years of what some described as generations of trauma, displacement and economic exploitation that still shape daily life across the island.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople say \u2018Greenland is for Greenlanders<\/a>,\u2019\u201d Petersen said. \u201cBut that\u2019s not reality. Denmark speaks for us. Denmark decides. They don\u2019t let us speak.\u201d<\/p>\n That imbalance was visible recently in Washington, where the Danish foreign minister dominated nearly the entire press conference following talks with US officials on purchasing the island, while the Greenlandic foreign minister was largely sidelined.<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen of Denmark insisted the roughly 56,000 Greenlanders wouldn\u2019t be bought off by payments from the US or vote in a referendum to become American.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no way that US will pay for a Scandinavian welfare system in Greenland,\u201d he told Fox News.\u00a0<\/p>\n Karen Hammeken Jensen lives in an old, black-mold infested Danish government housing block. Caitlin Doornbos\/NY Post<\/p>\n For many Greenlanders, US interest has been uncomfortable \u2014 but also clarifying. Not because they want annexation, but because it exposes how little autonomy Greenland actually has.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was colonial,\u201d Petersen said of Rasmussen\u2019s assertions. \u201cYou could see it in his body language. He didn\u2019t want her to speak.<\/p>\n \u201cIf Denmark really believed Greenland belongs to Greenlanders,<\/a>\u201d Petersen said, \u201cthey would let us decide our own future.\u201d<\/p>\n That lack of control extends into everyday economic life.\u00a0<\/p>\n Karen Hammeken Jensen, a Nuussuaq resident who moved from South Greenland seeking better opportunities for her children, said basic living conditions remain poor.<\/p>\n She lives in a government-owned apartment block built decades ago \u2014 cramped, aging and plagued by black mold \u2014 while the rent alone consumes most of her household\u2019s income.<\/p>\n \u201cThese buildings were never modernized,\u201d Jensen said, speaking to The Post from her living room, cold from poor insulation. \u201cThey were built for Inuit, and then forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n Elias Lunge, a fisherman for more than 40 years, said Greenlanders should receive more compensation for the dangerous work of capturing expensive Greenlandic seafood. Caitlin Doornbos\/NY Post<\/p>\n Although Denmark often points to subsidies as proof of generosity, Jensen said the system keeps Greenlanders trapped \u2014 with high costs, low wages and little chance to build wealth.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s about affordability,\u201d she said. \u201cPay versus cost. There is no balance.\u201d<\/p>\n Fishing price hikes <\/p>\n The imbalance is especially stark in fishing \u2014 Greenland\u2019s most important industry.<\/a><\/p>\n Elias Lunge, a fisherman who has worked the waters for 40 years, said Greenlanders do the labor while Denmark and large corporations capture the value.<\/p>\n \u201cWe fish the cod,\u201d Lunge said. \u201cThen it\u2019s frozen whole, shipped out, processed elsewhere and sold for much more.\u201d<\/p>\n In some settlements, fishermen are paid as little as $1.86 per kilo for cod. In Nuuk, the same fish can fetch $2.95. Once processed and sold abroad, the price climbs far higher.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s our fish,\u201d Lunge said, gesturing to freshly caught and filleted Greenlandic redfish, dolphin and seals. \u201cWhy shouldn\u2019t the money stay here?\u201d<\/p>\n A fish market in Nuuk, Greenland, is run by local fisherman who make far more selling directly to the public than to Danish fish producers.<\/p>\n Local fish markets that sell directly to consumers can charge up to $12.50 per kilo \u2014 proof, Lunge said, that Greenland could support its own processing industry if companies would build facilities on its shores.<\/p>\n \u201cThis shouldn\u2019t even be a debate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The human cost of colonial rule<\/p>\n Behind the anecdotes and statistics are lives marked by trauma, addiction and despair \u2014 conditions many Greenlanders link directly to colonial policies.<\/p>\n Jensen described seeing alcoholism, drug abuse and violence daily in her Nuuk neighborhood \u2014 symptoms of what she called \u201cgenerations\u201d of broken systems.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t see a way out,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd when no one listens, nothing changes.\u201d<\/p>\n