Hundreds of North Carolina women sterilized against their will each set to receive $50k compensation-gctid48727

[Agya Yaw]

Hundreds of North Carolina women sterilized against their will each set to receive $50k compensation
 
By Associated Press
Last updated at 10:07 PM on 10th January 2012
People sterilized against their will under a discredited North Carolina state programme should each be paid $50,000, a task force voted today.
 
This would mark the first time a state has moved to compensate victims of a once-common public health practice called eugenics.
 
The panel recommended that the money go to verified, living victims, including those who are alive now but may die before the lawmakers approve any compensation.
 
Comfort: Sadie Long, left, of Charlotte, talks to sterilization victim Lela Dunston, 63, following the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force meeting on Tuesday
 
Emotion: Elaine Riddick was a constant presence at the task force meetings and said she was surprised that the task force recommended $50,000 instead of $20,000
The Legislature must still approve any payments.
 
A task force report last year said 1,500 to 2,000 of those victims were still alive, and the state has verified 72 victims.
 
If the estimate is correct, the payments could total around $100 million.
 
Survivors will have three years to apply for payments from the time a measure approving them goes into effect.
 
'We have repeatedly acknowledged and stated as a task force that no amount of money can adequately pay for the harm done to these citizens,' panel chairwoman Laura Gerald said.
 
Recommendation: Dr Laura Gerald, chairman of the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force
'We are not attempting through our work to place a value on anyone's life. However, we are attempting to achieve a level of financial compensation and other services that can provide meaningful assistance to survivors
 
'Compensation also serves a collective purpose for the state and sends a clear message that we in North Carolina are people who pay for our mistakes and that we do not tolerate bureaucracies that trample on basic human rights.'
 
She said the task force was seeking a balance between the victims' needs and political reality, noting that 'compensation has been on the table now for nearly ten years, but the state has lacked the political will to do anything other than offer an apology.'
 
North Carolina is one of about a half-dozen states to apologize for past eugenics programmes, but it is alone in trying to put together a plan to compensate victims.
 
The task force recommendations also include that the state continue to support the N.C. Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation; that the compensation be awarded so that it doesn't affect victims' taxes or government services; and that mental health counseling be offered.
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"'The panel had discussed amounts between $20,000 and $50,000 per person, and some victims and their family members had reacted angrily to the proposals because they felt the amounts were too low.
 
The panel had also considered whether to compensate family members or descendants, but ultimately decided not to.
 
Scene: She was raped in her hometown of Winfall, North Carolina after taking the long road from school. The perpetrator was never charged
On Tuesday, some survivors said they were simply looking forward to the issue being resolved.
 
'I just want it to be over,' said 57-year-old Elaine Riddick, who was sterilized when she was 14 after she gave birth to a son who was the product of rape. 'You can't change anything. You just let go and let God.'
 
Mrs Riddick, a constant presence at the task force meetings, said she was surprised that the task force recommended $50,000 instead of $20,000.
 
Support: Sterilization victim Elaine Riddick holds hands with her son, Tony, following the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force meeting
Despite the potentially high price tag to compensate survivors during uncertain budget times, there's bipartisan support to provide monetary assistance.
 
Democratic Gov Beverly Perdue said during her 2008 campaign she wanted to provide compensation and later formed the task force.
 
Republican House Speaker Thom Tillis of Mecklenburg County has said the state should agree next year to pay victims and wants to form a legislative committee to work out details so something can be voted upon during the Legislature's budget-adjusting session in May.
 
The five-person panel was appointed in March 2011 by Gov Beverly Perdue and included a judge, doctor, former journalist, historian and attorney.
 
Eugenics programmes gained popularity in the U.S. and other countries in the early 1900s, but most abandoned those efforts after World War II because of the association with Nazi -Germany's programme aimed at racial purity.
 
More than 30 states enacted laws mandating surgical sterilization for certain individuals, but not all of them carried the procedures out.
 
More than 60,000 people were forcibly sterilized around the country, and some historians think thounited snakesnds more were sterilized in states without official programmes under the authority of doctors or local officials.
 
Overt rationalization for the programmes ranged from protecting the potential offspring of mentally disabled parents to improving the overall health and intellectual competence of the human race.
Before the atrocities of World War II, it was seen by many — both blacks and whites — as a legitimate effort to improve society.
 
Victim: Elaine Riddick went on to become a successful entrepreneur despite being sterilized because she was deemed feeble-minded and promiscuous
 
Against: Elaine and her son Tony, who was conceived after she was raped when she was 13, speak out against the eugenics programme
North Carolina's programme stood out because it ramped up sterilizations after World War II.
 
About 70 per cent of all North Carolina's sterilizations were performed after the war, peaking in the 1950s, according to state records. The state officially ended the programme in 1977.
'Any state or group of people can make a mistake, but it takes courage and strength of character to acknowledge wrongs and try to right them'
 
More than 7,600 were sterilized in North Carolina from 1929 to 1974.
 
A 1933 state law authorized the sterilization of people deemed to be 'mentally diseased, feeble-minded or epileptic.'
 
Most victims were poor, black women deemed unfit to be parents. People as young as ten were sterilized for reasons as minor as not getting along with schoolmates or being promiscuous.
 
Although officials obtained consent from patients or their guardians, many did not comprehend what they were signing.
Melissa Hyatt of Kernersville, whose stepfather was sterilized, said the task force 'did what was reasonable as far as budgets and economy'.
 
'It's not really about the money,' she said. 'It's about the suffering and the pain.'
 
Gerald, the chairwoman, urged the Legislature and Perdue to approve compensation during this year's session. 'Any state or group of people can make a mistake, but it takes courage and strength of character to acknowledge wrongs and try to right them,' she said.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2084873/North-Carolina-women-sterilized-set-receive-50k-compensation.html#ixzz1jLPN9EgY
:gyenyame:

[Agya Yaw]

N.C. task force recommends $50,000 for eugenics victims
Tommy Tomlinson
Published in: Local News




RALEIGH A governor's task force voted Tuesday to recommend paying $50,000 each to survivors who were sterilized under North Carolina's eugenics program.
 
The legislature will have to approve any payments. If that happens, North Carolina will be the first state to compensate victims of programs that sterilized tens of thounited snakesnds of poor, sick and mentally challenged people across the country.
 
The N.C. Eugenics Board approved sterilizing some 7,600 people between 1929 and 1974. The state expanded its program in the '40s and '50s, even as other states ended or reduced theirs because of the eugenics connection to Nazi Germany in World War II. Mecklenburg County, under longtime welfare director Wallace Kuralt, sterilized more people than any other North Carolina county by far. Dr. Laura Gerald, chairwoman of the task force, said her group wanted to send a message: "We in North Carolina are people who pay for our mistakes."
 
Legislators and advocates have been pushing for compensation for a decade. But the idea got traction last year after Gov. Bev Perdue formed the task force and created a state office to track down victims. The state estimates that 1,500 to 2,000 are still alive. As of Tuesday, only 72 had come forward and been verified. Officials expect that number to grow now that a specific recommendation is on the table.
 
Some cases approved by the Eugenics Board were people who were mentally ill and sexually aggressive, and families who wanted to stop having children. But the board also authorized sterilizing people who were poor, or part of large families, or whose parents worried that men might take advantage of them. Some victims were as young as 10.
 
The task force had originally talked about $20,000 for each living victim. But survivors and their families said that amount wasn't enough. One group of victims and family members passed around a proposal Tuesday that would give $1 million to each living victim and the estate of each victim who has died. The task force's proposal doesn't provide any money for families if the victim already has died.
 
Gerald said the task force tried to balance what survivors deserve against what the state has the will to pay. If 1,500 people are eventually identified as living victims, paying them $50,000 each would cost the state $75 million. The task force's proposal gives people three years to come forward from the time a package becomes official. It also calls for mental-health counseling and relief from state taxes on the compensation payment.
 
Victims and family members have been coming to the meetings and have spoken out often. On Tuesday, they didn't. Many said afterward that the package was tough to accept, but they understood the compromise.
 
"I thought they should've placed a little more value on it," said Sadie Long, guardian of Janice Black, a Charlotte resident who was sterilized in 1971.
 
"But at some point they've got to move on and try to get this done."
House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Cornelius, supports some sort of compensation for victims. He has said he'll put together a legislative committee to craft a bill, and wants to vote during the legislature's session that starts in May.
 
After it was over, the group of victims and family members lingered in the little conference room. A year ago, most of them didn't know anyone else who had been sterilized by the state. Now the country - and increasingly, the world - knows about them. NBC and The New York Times have done stories. A French journalist was in Charlotte on Monday to talk to Janice Black and Sadie Long. Most of all, though, now they know each other. They've been swapping phone numbers for support.
 
As the task force members left the room, Elaine Riddick - a victim who grew up in Winfall, in Eastern North Carolina - came over to Black and Long. "That's it for now," she said.
 
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/11/v-print/2914644/task-force-votes-to-pay-eugenics.html
 
:gyenyame:

[Akua Ma'at]

a balance??? sigh

"She said the task force was seeking a balance between the victims' needs and political reality, noting that 'compensation has been on the table now for nearly ten years, but the state has lacked the political will to do anything other than offer an apology.'"

[Ajamu]

BBC News - North Carolina rejects funds for sterilisation victims

                                                                           

Elaine Riddick was not told she was sterilised after giving birth

    Related Stories


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•     Cash for US sterilisation victims
  
•     America's legacy of sterilisation
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"'
     
                       Victims  of forced sterilisation in the US state of North Carolina will not get  compensation, after a payout plan failed in the state Senate.

         A plan to give $50,000 (£31,800) to each victim passed the  House but was rejected in the Senate. Republicans said the state did not  have the funds.

         Democratic Governor Beverly Purdue set aside $10m for the plan in her budget.

         It is thought about 7,600 people were sterilised in North Carolina from 1929 to 1974. Many were poor black women.

         While many states had sterilisation plans targeted at  "feeble-minded" people, North Carolina stands out for widening its  programme after World War II.

   'Lost all hope'      

The measure was also supported by Republican House Speaker  Thom Tillis, who has said that he sees the Senate's exclusion of the  measure from the state budget as a personal failure.

         Earlier, the plan was approved by the House.
   
      Another lawmaker who supported the bill said the decision made her ashamed to be part of the General Assembly.

         "I'm appalled that the North Carolina Senate today took no  action to compensate the victims that we as a state robbed of their  rights to reproduce and to have children," Democratic lawmaker Earline  Parmon said.

         "At this point, I have lost all hope."

         But Republican senators said the state could not afford to include the money in the state budget.

         "The state has no money anyway and the teachers would like to  have a pay raise, and state employees would like to have a pay raise  and you're dealing with a $250 million shortfall in Medicaid," Senator  Austin Allran said.

         He added that passage of the measure might encourage other  groups who say they have been victimised in the past to seek  compensation.

         Both chambers of the North Carolina government must now approve the final version of the budget.

         One of the most vocal victims of sterilisation, Elaine  Riddick, from Atlanta, Georgia, says she was raped and then sterilised  after giving birth to a son when she was 14.

         "I have given North Carolina a chance to justify what they had wronged," Ms Riddick said.

         "These people here don't care about these victims. I will die before I let them get away with this."

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Imagine 50 gs in exchange for your claim to living eternally through your descendants til infinity. She doesn't need to "die before she lets them get away with this", she needs to help those responsible do some dying.

[NyameNti]

In order to fuel the fire...we must remember.  It is so painful, but we must remember.

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

welcome to north carolina