Sweden’s Dirty Secret

The expose was numbing. Sweden’s Social Democratic governments, hailed for perfecting the post-World War II welfare state and its humanitarian benefits, had a dark and dirty secret. From 1935 to 1976 the state sanctioned a program of sterilizing women to weed out “inferior” racial characteristics and encourage Aryan features among the Swedes.

While reading the revelations of journalist Maciej Zaremba in the newspaper Dagens Nyheter, one could almost hear the anthems of Nazi Germany. The accusation has not been denied. Zaremba wrote that Norwegian and Danish scientists joined the Swedes in developing “racial cleansing sciences” after World War I. “To put it brutally,” the expose declared, “in Sweden it was only under the Social Democrats and in Germany only under the Nazis that a citizen’s capacity for reproduction could be stolen because of the color of their hair or their handicap.”

The victims have now come forward. Many say they agreed to sterilization under the threat of losing custody of their children and their state benefits. Included were women deemed to be inferior, meaning those with learning difficulties or of “poor or mixed racial quality.”

Social Affairs Minister Margot Wallstrom said she will review the laws, specifically the statutes that say such victims cannot seek damages.

That’s not nearly satisfactory. These women, up to 60,000 over four decades, were denied their rights and dignity in the name of racial purity. Outrageous. Compensation is just the beginning of what should follow.