Where Was Their Choice?
on March 5th, 2010 at 3:48 amNC sterilization compensation fund gets 1st leader
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s effort to help thousands of mental patients and prisoners sterilized against their will decades ago moved forward Tuesday as state officials announced its first hire to lead a program to determine how to compensate victims.
Charmaine Fuller Cooper, named the first executive director of the North Carolina Justice for Victims of Sterilization Foundation, will help develop criteria to determine whether patients or their descendants qualify for financial restitution or other assistance, according to the Department of Administration.
More than 7,600 people were sterilized by choice or coercion under the state’s so-called eugenics program between 1933 and 1973. Then-Gov. Mike Easley apologized in 2002 for the state’s role in the sterilizations. Activities to help victims have been slow due to financial constraints and political obstacles. (more…)
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