The Swedish government has approved a draft document granting compensation to thousands of women who were forcibly sterilised as part of a 40-year eugenics programme.

The government has agreed to grant around $21,150 to each of the victims.

Officials have given the document to their lawyers to iron out the details, but no major changes are expected.

Two years ago, an investigative reporter uncovered the policy carried out between 1936 and 1976 of forcibly sterilising women considered socially unfit.

They included women released from prison, the mentally ill, people with learning difficulties, the poor, epileptics, alcoholics and women of "mixed racial quality".

Consent form

Around 63,000 women were sterilised over the 40-year period.

Over 90% of them had signed a consent form, but between 6,000 and 15,000 had not and are eligible for compensation.

A signature on a consent form is no longer considered sufficient for sterilisation nowadays.

Some women were forced to undergo the operation in order to get out of prison, to qualify for certain welfare benefits or to avoid losing custody of their children.

Several of the people sterilised were children.

Haunted

Leif Persson, secretary of the commission set up to look into the sterilisation policy, said found it easy to find information on women who had been sterilised in mental hospitals, in prisons or as minors.

Many others had called the commission. In the last month, at least 150 people had contacted the commission.

"They say they have been haunted by this their whole lives and that this has been a real source of shame for them," Mr Person told Reuters news agency.

Since the Swedish case came to light, it has been revealed that many other countries carried out sterilisation programmes, based on eugenics ideas linked to the Nazis.

They include Austria, France, Finland, Norway and Switzerland.