North Carolina agrees to compensate sterilization victims for 45-year eugenics program
After a ten-year deliberation process, North Carolina is set to be the first state to offer monetary compensation to victims of government-sponsored sterilization.
Between 1929 and 1974, the state sterilized an estimated 7,600 people by choice, force or coercion under the authority of the North Carolina Eugenics Board program.
The North Carolina General Assembly in late July approved compensation for the remaining victims of the sterilization program. State Governor Pat McCrory signed into law the $10 million compensation package -- to be distributed among living victims -- as part of the state’s $20.6 billion budget shortly after the General Assembly’s vote. Verified victims will be issued a share by 2015.
The number of victims alive in 2013 is unknown. However, the state Center for Health Statistics estimates that 2,944 victims may be living as of 2010. Less than 200 people have come forward with sterilization claims, Charmaine Fuller-Cooper, former director of the North Carolina Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, told CNN.
http://rt.com/usa/north-carolina-eugenics-program-932/