(DURHAM) - Today the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force will have its final meeting before submitting their official recommendations to the Governor. The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP through the Women in the NAACP (WIN) would like to express our support for the NC Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation, Eugenics Task Force and victims of the North Carolina Eugenics Board. We continue to see promise in the recent activities by the Task Force addressing this ugly chapter in North Carolina's history which resulted in the forcible sterilization of many of our citizens, many of whom were poor and minority.

 The NC NAACP with our 120+ HKonJ partners addressed the issue of wrongful sterilization with the adoption of the coalition's 14-point agenda in 2007. Since that time, obtaining compensation for the victims of the forcible sterilization program has been a mainstay of our agenda.

Ten years have passed since the state offered a formal apology to victims of the involuntary sterilizations in 2001. Time is precious for the surviving victims and we need to move forward to assist these individuals. We ask that the task force and our state leaders quickly move forward in authorizing compensation to individual victims as soon as possible.

 While we understand a figure for compensation has been proposed, we ask that the victims be compensated at the highest amount that our moral conscience and justice demands. These victims have suffered for years, in some cases enduring immense physical and psychological distress. You heard many of the heart-breaking stories during the testimony last summer by several of the victims who were brave and strong enough to share their hurt in a public forum. The time has come for the state to right this horrible wrong and fulfill its promise to these citizens who have suffered long enough.

 We call on the leadership of this North Carolina to support the payment of restitution for the sterilization victims and move the compensation process forward so that restitution is made to victims this year.

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Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.