Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
- California is awaiting approval to give reparations to victims of forced sterilization, the Associated Press reported.
- The victims would receive compensation of about $25,000, including those who were sterilized in state prisons.
- Eugenics is a practice to sterilize those who were deemed "undesirable."
- Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.
The state of California is set to pay compensation to the victims of the "horrific history" of eugenics – a practice that determined that certain people, most in marginalized groups including those with mental illness or disabilities, should not reproduce due to "undesirable traits."
The Associated Press first reported that once approved, the state will give about $25,000 to the survivors who experienced sterilization.
As Insider's Sarah Al-Arshani previously reported, the first eugenics sterilization law stems back to Indiana in 1907 and expanded to 30 states including California. The AP reported the state initiated its program in 1909. According to the report, the payments will also be given to women who were sterilized in California prisons.
The state prison system forced the sterilization of more than 1,000 women inmates, a majority of them Black, for years between 1997 and 2003. A recent PBS documentary highlighted how the stories of women who were given hysterectomies after giving birth without their consent or knowledge. Some were told they had cervical cancer and had to undergo procedures.
"We must address and face our horrific history. This isn't something that just happened in the past," Lorena Garcia Zermeño of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice told the Associated Press.
A similar payout was given to sterilization victims in Virginia in 2015 and in North Carolina two years before, Reuters reported.
Dit artikel is oorspronkelijk verschenen op z24.nl