Forced sterilizations, degrading treatment, and sexual assaults: The government apologizes to disabled people for a dark period in Danish history.

According to TV2's live blog, which is currently being updated, the Danish government has issued a formal apology to those who were placed in special care and the mentally disabled between 1933 and 1980. The apology was delivered at an event that began at 1:00 PM in Comwell Bygholm Park in Horsens. The event aimed to formally apologize to those who suffered degrading treatment, including violence, isolation, sexual abuse, and forced sterilization under the guise of eugenics, among other forms of mistreatment. The apology was delivered by Minister for Social Affairs and Housing Pernille Rosenkranz Theil, in the presence of former Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, whose father was a victim of that dark period.

Facts about caring for people with special needs and mental disabilities, according to the source:

• 27,500 people were placed in mentally retarded care between 1933 and 1980, when care ceased.
• Sterilization procedures were performed on 5,779 people under the Mentally Weak Act of 1934 through 1967, including 1,809 men.
• Special care included the mentally retarded, the blind and visually impaired, the deaf and hard of hearing, those with epilepsy, people with speech impairments, and the ”disabled”.”
• People with physical disabilities and ”mentally deficient” was the prevailing definition at the time for people with developmental disabilities.
• However, the criteria for who ended up in the social care system were not clear, and whether or not someone would be placed was determined based on whether the person could score above 75 on an intelligence test.
  -As part of special care and mentally retarded care, institutions were also set up on the island for “morally weak” men and “frivolous” women.

An elderly woman recounts her story of undergoing forced sterilization to prevent her from having children.

The source shared a profile on its live blog about Caroline Olsen, one of several people living in Denmark who were declared mentally disabled in their youth by the Danish state. She was placed in a women's institution in Sprogø at the age of 15 and forcibly sterilized at 18 to prevent her from having children. Caroline Olsen told TV2 ØST, "Forced sterilization is devastating. They take away the most important thing in your body when you want children. They think that with this treatment you will get better. Don't.".

One of those affected is the father of the Danish Prime Minister between 1993 and 2001

According to TV2, former Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, now 80 years old, whose father was a victim of that dark era, delivered a speech. His father, Olof Nyrup Rasmussen, was labeled "mentally deficient" in the 1920s and sent to an institution for mentally deficient men in Livø, where he remained for seven years until 1931. Poul Nyrup Rasmussen stated in his speech: "Grave abuses were committed, which were also illegal in those days, due to the failure of state oversight." However, he also asked the assembly to remember that other social welfare procedures were perfectly legal, including forced sterilizations, which became legal in Denmark in 1934. His father was subjected to this treatment after the birth of his son, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, who later became Prime Minister of Denmark.

Why the apology now?

According to the source, it was former Minister of Social Affairs Astrid Kraje who promised in 2022 that there would be a formal apology to the thousands of Danes who, between 1933 and 1980, were under what was then called special care and mentally retarded.

This pledge came after a landmark investigation commissioned by the Department for Social Affairs and the Elderly, which painted numerous pictures of violence, coercion and sexual abuse in the social care system to such an extent that it surprised the researchers who conducted the research and prepared the report.

What does an apology mean?

A formal apology from Denmark means that the state takes responsibility and apologizes for actions committed in the past, according to the source.

In the past, Denmark also apologized to the so-called “Godhavnsdrenge” who were subjected to violence, sexual abuse, and medical experiments at the Godhavn Boys“ Home, the Greenland residents known as ”experimental children” who were forcibly taken from their homes and families and sent to Denmark in 1951, as well as the residents of Thule, Greenland, who were forcibly relocated to make way for an American airbase in Greenland.

Source: TV2 website