A five-member task force appointed by Gov. Bev Perdue recommended Tuesday that victims of a statewide sterilization program be paid $50,000 each in compensation.
While dozens of states had programs in the 20th century that allowed people to be sterilized against their will or without fully understanding what was happening in the name of improving the human race, none of the others has offered anything more than apologies.
The task force's decision seemed to leave victims and their family members divided. Some said they were happy that an earlier proposal to pay $20,000 to victims was topped, but others called the $50,000 vastly inadequate for their pain and suffering.
State Rep. Earline Parmon, D-Forsyth, attended the task force's meeting Tuesday — its last — and said afterward that she thinks a compensation package of $50,000 is "doable."
"I am very optimistic that the North Carolina General Assembly will act on this recommendation," Parmon said.
House Speaker Rep. Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, said Tuesday he would review the recommendations. He previously has said that he wants the legislature to vote this year on a compensation plan.
Republican Sen. Richard Stevens, one of the Senate's chief budget writers, said $50,000 per person "seems like a small amount to pay for what they had to endure, but $100 million is a large sum for the state of North Carolina."
"Somewhere in there, there's got to be fairness to the individuals but mindful of the realities of the state's budget," he said.
Perdue issued a statement Tuesday in support of the recommendations.
Dr. Laura Gerald, the task force chairwoman, said that from 1929 to 1974, the state sterilized 7,600 people who had been deemed unfit to reproduce. State officials say as many as 2,000 are still alive, though only 72 people have come forward so far.
Gerald said no amount of money can really compensate victims, but the payment would make a statement that the government had acted wrongly.
"Compensation sends a message that we do not tolerate bureaucracies that trample on basic human rights," she said.
The committee, appointed last year, consisted of a judge, a doctor, a former journalist, a historian and a lawyer. The committee members split on the amount to be awarded, but picked the $50,000 amount by a 3-2 margin. The minority wanted to award each victim $20,000.
At the start of the meeting, some victims passed out a request for $1 million per victim, including the same amount for survivors of deceased victims. Under the proposal approved by the task force, only living victims would be compensated.
Victim Elaine Riddick, among those asking for $1 million, said she was nonetheless pleased that the panel recommended $50,000 rather than $20,000.
Riddick said she was sterilized at age 14, after she gave birth following a rape when she was 13.
Riddick, 57, said she didn't find out she had been sterilized until she was 19. "Nobody told me anything," she said.
Lela Dunston, 63, was 13 when she, too, was sterilized after giving birth.
"I didn't have nothing to do with it," she said. "They told my mother to sign the papers. She didn't know what she was signing."
Dunston called the $50,000 proposal "bogus."
Delores Marks, whose late mother was sterilized, said she was disappointed that the proposed compensation leaves out the estates of deceased victims.
"What the task force fails to understand is that it was not just the victims who suffered, but that it involved families," she said.
If the General Assembly acts, the sterilization victims would have three years to file a claim.
In addition to paying victims, the task force's proposal includes mental health services for victims and educating people about the forced-sterilization program.
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