On July 13, 2021, Governor Newsom signed the California state budget which included $7.5 million to provide reparations to survivors of state sponsored forced sterilizations. California is the first state in the country to provide reparations to survivors who were sterilized while incarcerated in its women’s prisons. Between 2006 and 2010, a state audit revealed that at least 144 people, the majority of whom identify as Black and Latinx, were illegally sterilized during labor and delivery while in custody in women’s prisons. Most of these people were never even made aware that they had been sterilized. The law provided compensation for any survivor of coercive sterilization performed on an individual under the custody and control of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation after 1979. Most of these people were never even made aware that they had been sterilized. See the article Belly of the Beast: California’s dark history of forced sterilizations to learn more.
Check out the movie, Belly of the Beast: California’s dark history of forced sterilization’s, using the below link.
