Oct. 3 (UPI) -- Dozens of elderly Greenland women are demanding compensation for being subjected to forced birth control by the Danish government more than 50 years ago.
Lawyers acting for the 67 women, some of whom are in their late 70s, submitted a claim Monday seeking an immediate $42,150 payment for each of the women amid an official inquiry by the governments of Denmark and Greenland that is due to finish in 2025.
The group said it would take legal action if their claims are rejected.
Between 1966 and 1970, at least 4,500 intrauterine devices -- the coil -- were fitted to women without their knowledge or permission to restrict the birth rate of the territory's majority Indigenous Inuit people. Some of the women were as young as 13 when they had the IUDs fitted.
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The group's leader, Naja Lyberth, told the BBC the women could not afford to wait any longer for justice.
"We are getting older. The oldest of us, who had IUDs inserted in the 1960s, were born in the 1940s and are approaching 80. We want to act now."
"It's already 100% clear that the government has broken the law by violating our human rights and causing us serious harm," she said.
Aftercare was poor to nonexistent, with many women suffering pain, internal bleeding and abdominal infections, in part because coils for adult women were fitted to young girls, leading to several having hysterectomies or otherwise becoming unable to have children.
"It was the same as sterilizing the girls from the beginning," Lyberth said.
Some were unaware they had the devices until recently after they were examined by gynecologists.
The scale of the abuse was likely on a much wider scale than the 4,500 known cases, with the Greenland government estimating that by the end of 1969, 35% of women of child-bearing age in the territory had been fitted with a coil.
It is acknowledged that forced contraction was practiced until 1975, but there is evidence that it continued long afterward, according to BBC, which reported that one woman discovered she had been fitted with a coil in 2009 when she was unable to conceive.
A second woman told of being administered a long-acting contraceptive injection without her consent in 2014. Greenland, a Danish colony since 1953, assumed responsibility for healthcare in 1991.
The Danish government said it was committed to getting to the bottom of what it acknowledged was a "tragic" issue.
"It is a deeply tragic matter and the women's stories have left a profound impression on me. It is imperative that we thoroughly investigate this matter, which is why a team of researchers currently is conducting an independent and impartial investigation," Danish Health Minister Sophie Lohde told The Guardian.
