March 28, 2017 · 2 min read

Sweden Announces To Pay Compensation to Trans People

Quote of TGEU Executive Director, Julia Ehrt saying, 'TGEU very much welcomes this decision from the Swedish government and urges other governments to follow suit.' Blue background with orange frame. White and orange texts.

TGEU welcomes the announcement of the Swedish government on Friday, March 24 to pay a financial compensation to forcibly sterilised trans people in Sweden. This is a great victory for the trans community in Sweden.

“This is the first time a state has recognised forced sterilisations of trans people in legal gender recognition procedures as the human rights violation and financially compensates victims. TGEU very much welcomes this decision from the Swedish government and urges other governments to follow suit.”, said TGEU Executive Director, Julia Ehrt.

“Human rights violations cannot be undone, but by recognising the violation and compensating trans people financially, Sweden has taken a big step towards rectifying previous injustice” adds Ulrika Westerlund, Swedish member of TGEU’s Executive Board.

On Friday 24 March, the Swedish Minister for Public Health, Healthcare and Sports, Gabriel Wikström, announced that the Swedish government has agreed to financially compensate forcibly sterilised trans people with the amount of 225 000 SEK, approximately €23 600, per person.

The compensation will be available for anyone who was forcibly sterilised by the Swedish state from 1972-2013 in order to comply with the previous requirements in the Swedish legal gender recognition act.

In April 2016, the government first announced that it had agreed to pay out compensation, after lengthy pressure from Swedish LGBTQ rights organisation, RFSL. RFSL had worked for financial compensation since forced sterilisations were removed in 2013, and collected testimonials from over 160 forcibly sterilised people in order to take the case to court.

The amount is in line with compensation previously paid out by the Swedish government to other forcibly sterilised people who were affected by Swedish sterilisation laws that existed from 1934-1975.

In the same way, the compensation will be made available through a temporary law that will exist for two years from the planned day of enactment, 1 May 2018.