Sterilization Victims in Sweden May Be Compensated
STOCKHOLM — The Swedish government moved closer Thursday to approving compensation of $21,150 each to victims of a 40-year Nazi-style program during which thousands were sterilized against their will.
The Social Affairs Ministry said it had approved a draft on compensation and turned it over to lawyers to iron out the final details.
An investigative journalist uncovered chilling evidence two years ago that between 1936 and 1976, nearly 63,000 people--mostly women--were sterilized, many because they were considered racially or socially inferior.
The Swedish government wants to pass a law through Parliament by July 1 to allow victims to be compensated over the next two years.
Nordic countries, pursuing the pseudo-science of eugenics in the 1920s, used sterilization to weed out those considered “inferior” or of “poor or mixed racial quality.”
It is unclear how many people were sterilized against their will, but estimates range from 6,000 to 15,000.
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