How do you compensate those who were sterilized by the state of North Carolina? Women who were sterilized, legislators, members of a study committee established this year by Gov. Mike Easley and the governor himself have spent months trying to answer the question.

In a national first, they have come up with a list of recommendations - approved by Easley last month - that they hope will ease the pain suffered by those sterilized and at the same time provide reminders and education to prevent a similar tragedy. Most of the victims were poor women who were often coerced into sterilization by social workers. Inaccurate labels of "feeble-mindedness" were often used as justification.

Some of the proposals would directly help the victims. The committee recommended providing education benefits through the University of North Carolina system and community colleges. It also recommended setting up a special fund to provide health care. The benefits would be provided possibly through Medicaid or the state health plan.

Committee members want to set up a nonprofit group to help find and support those sterilized. They also want to establish a system in which those sterilized can get help, possibly from college students, in negotiating the maze of medical records needed to confirm their stories.

Committee members also recommended building a memorial to the more than 7,600 people who were sterilized by the state and including information about the program in the state's North Carolina history curriculum. They also want to hold a seminar to discuss the eugenic sterilization program with experts. And the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services will establish a course in ethics that will be required for all professional workers in the department.

"Anytime we take away a person's ability to choose, there has to be a great deal more study and evaluation than we used in the past," said Ted Gartman Jr. of Greenville, who signed petitions for sterilizations as the director of public welfare in Pitt County from 1965 through 1969.

In response to a series of stories published in the Winston-Salem Journal, Easley apologized in December for the actions of the Eugenics Board of North Carolina, which ordered the operations from 1929 through 1974.

Easley then did what no one else has done in the other 32 states that had similar programs - he established a eugenics study committee to consider reparations and other forms of compensation for those sterilized and approved its recommendations.

The money for some of the programs, such as the health credits, will have to come from a special appropriation from the General Assembly in 2004. Others, such as changes to the curriculum in public schools, will have to be implemented by other state departments.

Several victims say that reparations are needed as well. They are not happy with the way Easley handled the process, making the decision to back the recommendations quietly in August. Neither the public nor those victims who had already come forward were notified.

Nial Cox Ramirez, one of the women sterilized by the state, recounted her experience to the commitee in March.

Later, she visited the governor's mansion to watch Easley sign the bill that repealed the last remnants of the state's sterilization statute. She expected the governor's office to notify her when Easley responded to the committee's recommendations.

"He (Easley) made a decision," said Ramirez, who was sterilized in Washington County in 1965 and now lives outside Atlanta. "He didn't even tell anybody that he made a decision. If you could call us to Raleigh (for the earlier visit) ... he could have told us in a formal letter that he did all he could do," she said. "But like I said, forget that. I'm going to let God take care of that.... God is bigger than me."

In its report to the governor, the eugenics committee said it "strongly believes that survivors also deserve some form of financial compensation for what we believe is a violation of human rights." But committee members also said that a legislative study commission would be a more appropriate group to decide about compensation.

State Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth, has introduced a bill that would create such a commission. It would report to the General Assembly during its 2004 session.

Some observers say that reparations are unrealistic in a time when the state is dealing with falling revenues, climbing unemployment and the long recovery from Hurricane Isabel. But Womble said he is "keeping hope alive."

"I'm not so naive as to not realize that there are other priorities, but at the same time this should take top priority ... because this was something that was done against human beings against their will," he said. "I think we do need to make some kind of tangible compensation to these victims."

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