RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- The North Carolina panel responsible for figuring out how to compensate the victims of the state's decades-long forced sterilization program says survivors should get $50,000 each without delay.
The task force said in its final report issued Friday that it decided compensation should be limited to those 1,500 to 2,000 still alive in order that state lawmakers will approve the money this year. The payout amounting to as much as $100 million needs legislative approval.
The report says the task force feared that trying to compensate the families of the nearly 7,600 men and women sterilized by state order would mean money for no one.
North Carolina would be the first of the dozens of states that forcibly sterilized the "feeble-minded" and others during the 20th century to compensate victims.
