Virginia lawmakers approved a measure Thursday to compensate people forcibly sterilized under a eugenics program that was in place for much of the 20th century.

More than 8,000 Virginians underwent procedures between the 1920s and 1970s as part of a movement that sought to improve the genetic makeup of humankind by preventing those considered "defective" from reproducing. Scientists have now discredited eugenics as a flawed theory that has been misused for political purposes.

Under the measure, which is now being considered by Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, at least 11 survivors from Virginia are to be awarded $25,000 each in compensation. Many view the measure as formal acknowledgment of the injustice inherent in the program.

"I think its a recognition when we do something wrong we need to fix it as a government, Reuters quoted Delegate Patrick Hope (D) as saying. "Now we can close this final chapter and healing can begin.

In 2002 Mark Warner, then governor of Virginia, issued a formal apology for the states decision to forcibly sterilize thousands of its residents.

However, the battle for compensation wasnt launched until about a decade later. Delegate Benjamin Cline, a conservative Republican from Rockbridge County, and Delegate Hope, a liberal Democrat from Arlington County, introduced the bipartisan bill to compensate the victims.

"There was a growing consensus that we needed to act while we still had the opportunity to look these people in the eye and acknowledge the wrong that was committed against them so many years ago," Delegate Cline said, according to the Associated Press.

Although Cline says that no amount of money is sufficient to right the wrong that was committed, he sees Thursdays move as symbolic.

Some of the victims said the news was welcome.

"I think they done me wrong," Lewis Reynolds, one of the men forcibly sterilized, told AP. "I couldn't have a family like everybody else does. They took my rights away.

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Virginia to compensate victims of state's forced sterilization program (+video)