‘Magdalene
Laundries’ was a giant laundry business run by Nuns (Sisters of Mercy) who
forced young women into these asylums, torturing and using them for free labor.
Held against their will, the girls were degraded, and manipulated into
believing they had to be washed of their ‘sins’ for being “fallen women”. That
is, for getting pregnant before marriage (including victims of rape), for being
“too pretty” and “tempting to men”, mentally disabled, or if a girl was
outspoken, strong-willed, or otherwise non-conforming.
The innocent ladies were forced to work endlessly without compensation,
starved, and physically abused, denied of their rights and freedom. They also
endured a daily regime that included long periods of prayer and enforced
silence. An estimated 30,000 women passed through Ireland's laundries and the
last asylum in Ireland closed on September 25, 1996. To-date, the “Sisters of
Mercy” deny the abuse they have caused, but claim that the documents of many
inmates have burned in “accidental” fires. The Irish government has done
nothing about this. In fact, to-date the government claims the ladies were here
“willingly”. Survivor testimonies prove otherwise.
Advocates for survivors of a Roman Catholic
workhouse system that kept generations of young women and girls in virtual
slavery expressed disappointment and anger on Tuesday at Prime Minister Enda
Kenny’s failure to formally apologize after a report found extensive state
involvement in the institutions.
Reacting
to the
1,000-page government report, which found the state
responsible for committing thousands of young women to the workhouses, the last
of which closed in 1996, Mr. Kenny told Parliament that the women had been sent
at a time when Ireland was a harsh, uncompromising and authoritarian place.
“I’m
sorry that this release of pressure and understanding for so many of those
women was not done before this, because they were branded as fallen women,” he
said.
However,
Mr. Kenny stopped short of issuing an official apology on behalf of the state
for its involvement in the so-called Magdalene Laundries, saying that a full
parliamentary debate would take place in two weeks after politicians had time
to review the document.
James M.
Smith, an associate professor at Boston College and a member of the campaign
group Justice
for Magdalenes, described Mr. Kenny’s statement as “egregious and insensitive,”
adding that the government had received the report two weeks ago and had plenty
of time to consider it.
“Mr.
Kenny has failed the test of moral courage,” he said. “Yet again an Irish
government has let down the very people it purports to serve.”
Professor
Smith said the prime minister’s failure to apologize not only
was a
setback for the dwindling number of survivors but would also ultimately reflect
badly on the Irish state.
“The
women really did expect something more from this government,” he said. “This
fairly cynical response has lost it an awful lot of good will today as a
result.”
Steven
O’Riordan, a member of another lobby group, Magdalenes Survivors
Together, said that while the report recognized that the Irish state was
directly complicit in allowing the laundries to exist, Mr. Kenny’s statement
was “halfhearted at best.”
“I am
annoyed because it sounded like a throwaway gesture,” he said.
The
report found that 10,012 women and girls were detained in the laundries from
1922 to 1996, but this figure excludes two large laundries operated by one
Catholic order. It stated that 2,124 of those detained in the institutions had
been sent by the authorities.
The
survivors of the laundries are seeking a state apology for their treatment as
well as redress for years of unpaid labor and pension payments. The “Maggies,”
as they were known, were excluded from a previous compensation scheme for those
who suffered in state-run institutions because officials said that the
laundries were never under the aegis of the state.
The
institutions were named after Mary Magdalene, a biblical figure who, at the
time of their founding in the mid-1800s, was generally thought to have been a
prostitute redeemed by the teachings of Christ. While many women sent to work
in the 10 laundries around the country were unwed mothers, the report found
that the vast majority were referred for a wide range of other reasons, ranging
from petty offenses to mental illness.
In his
introduction to the report, Martin McAleese, the committee chairman, said
the women had for too long felt the social stigma of the “wholly inaccurate
characterization” of them as “fallen women,” something “not borne out by the
facts.”
The
report characterized the conditions in the laundries as “harsh” but found no
evidence of systematic sexual abuse. Mr. McAleese said that did not mean the
women had not suffered in other ways.
“None of
us can begin to imagine the confusion and fear experienced by these young
girls, in many cases little more than children,” he said. “Not knowing why they
were there, feeling abandoned, wondering whether they had done something wrong
and not knowing when, if ever, they would get out and see their families
again.”
When women were admitted to
the laundries, they were uniformly given different names, which survivors say
was done to erase their identities. The report says that the religious orders
that operated the laundries and cooperated with the committee explained that
the new names helped to protect the women’s privacy
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