From the 1960s until 1992, Danish authorities forced about half of the island’s 9,000 fertile Inuit women to wear a contraceptive coil – or intrauterine device (IUD) – without their or their family’s consent.

Many of the women were left sterile, and almost all of them have suffered from physical or psychological problems.

Around 150 of the women have sued the Danish state for violating their rights.

“We cannot change what has happened. But we can take responsibility. Therefore, on behalf of Denmark, I would like to say: I am sorry,” Frederiksen said in a statement.

At the time, the Arctic territory had not been a Danish colony since 1953 but was still under its control.

“We know that there are also other dark chapters that deal with systematic discrimination against Greenlanders. Just because they were Greenlanders,” Frederiksen said.

“My apology on behalf of Denmark is also an apology for these other failures for which Denmark is responsible, where Greenlanders have been systematically treated differently and worse than other citizens of the kingdom.”

The practice of forced contraception continued on a smaller scale after 1992, when Greenland took over responsibility for its health system.

Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen also apologised in the same statement for the cases that occurred under Greenland’s control.

“I apologise to those of you who have been exposed to – and lived with the consequences of – interventions you did not ask for nor had control over,” he said.