I find it very hard to believe that these women would have volunteered to enter into these institutions and often if they were a minor they would have been entered under the then childcare act which meant they were effectively destitute and therefore no option. The abuse suffered by these children and young women was just appalling and
shocking. The value of stolen chilhoods and young lives is priceless and theirs was stolen from them by years of physical, sexual, and psychological torture.

“went there voluntarily”

yeah right from all I’ve read and seen about these places not even the dirt on my shoe would choose to go there voluntarily

quoted: “if they were minors, with the consent of their parents or guardians”.

That does not mean it was right …!!

It is about time that the Irish State was brought to task over it’s collusion with the so called “Catholic” church institutions by an outside body such as the UN. Well done to the group that brought this matter to the attention if the UN. Keep up the good work.

“voluntarily”? Are you kidding me?

I should also add that not one of the survivors that have approached us has ever said that she entered a Magdalene Laundry on a voluntary basis. Some survivors were literally taken from the streets, others were sent involuntarily from mother and baby homes or industrial schools, but none of them ever chose to be there. Mr. Aylward is very much mistaken.

The above article does not accurately portray what happened at today’s session, in that it does not report what the UNCAT committee members said – four of the committee members raised the issue of the Magdalene Laundries.

Acting chairperson of the Committee, Felice Gaer particularly raised the issue of Mr. Aylward’s assertion that the majority of women entered the Laundries “voluntarily,” Ms. Gaer asked “what is voluntary?” Adding:
“I think voluntary means that one makes a choice, that one is informed, that one is then free to leave. I think it means that there is nothing coercive…

Do you have anything to suggest that the vast majority of women who went were aware of the conditions … if they were aware of the procedure, if they made a choice, if they were given information … or in the few cases of where individuals were sent there from courts, did they receive relevant information in that instance?

Otherwise we have a situation where it seems like there was not only a … question about consent, but also a situation where there may have been restraint on people’s freedom of movement. We had testimony about locked doors and people being captured by police and returned. So there were physical barriers, and there seems to have been an intent to confine people, and it seems that people who were confined feel that they were harmed by it.

So my question is also what measures were taken to exercise due diligence, which you so clearly recognise in your laws on domestic violence, your female genital mutilation bill which says there cannot be a claim of consent, or elsewhere.”

Ms. Gaer asked: “Can you identify any examples of efforts by state authorities to inspect or regulate these facilities? Were they exempt from standards…? And can you tell us what means were taken to ensure that there were no acts or omissions that amount to torture…?

She added: “An act of torture may also arise from an act of omission and not just a positive act. So this appears to include failure to inspect or regulate the place where acts of torture occurred. My question is: Wouldn’t this apply to the Magdalene laundries and do you see that as something that might be addressed in the coming weeks?”

Hi Adrian,

(Apologies if another version of this comment comes through – I appear to have lost my first attempt)

It’s a common misconception that women and girls who were incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries were there because they were pregnant. Make no mistake about it, the Magdalene Laundries were for-profit businesses and the nuns were looking for a work force. There were women and girls who were transferred from Mother and Baby Homes (where they gave birth to and were separated from their children through adoption) to the Magdalene Laundries. There are cases where women and girls were transferred from Magdalene Laundries to Mother and Baby Homes to have their children and then back to the laundry.

There might be cases where on the face of it, it would appear that some women may have entered the laundries on a so-called “voluntary” basis, however I’d refer to Felice Gaer’s comments in the UN Committee Against Torture yesterday: “I think voluntary means that one makes a choice, that one is informed, that one is then free to leave. I think it means that there is nothing coercive…”

My colleague Prof James Smith from Boston College (and JFM’s Advisory Committee) has uncovered evidence of probation officers who took women to the laundries via the court system, but he could find no record of the probation officers ever checking to ensure the women left once their time was served. In fact, Prof Smith discovered letters between Mother Superiors and Judges, with the Mother Superior assuring the Judge that she would do her best to “keep her here in safety even after her time has elapsed”. I would also note that I attended a meeting with Mr. Aylward’s department in December 2009, during which his officials were presented with this evidence.

In terms of tracing, it is very possible to do so. As it happens, I also work with Adoption Rights Alliance and I would advise a visit to our website http://www.adoptionrightsalliance.com (click on ‘Search and Reunion’) – there you can download our Tracing Handbooks which will take you step by step through the searching process. As Maggie said, Justice for Magdalenes also has various resources, including our Names Project, and if you click on ‘Resources’ at http://www.magdalenelaundries.com you can download our Research Guides (one for survivors, one for relatives).

Release of records is a crucial issue – in fact, we are very concerned about whether due care is being taken to maintain and preserve various records. However, the main problem at the moment is that the church refuses to release any records after 1900. This is not only important for survivors themselves, but for the children and other family members of women who spent time in laundries. Similarly, we are also calling on the state to ensure that each of the Magdalene graves has the name of each women buried on a headstone, rather than the unmarked mass graves we find around the country. Again, this is not only important for the respect and dignity of the women buried in these graves, we must also think of their families, including adopted people, who when they reach the end of their trace might discover their natural mother is dead – to have a grave with a name to come to and pay respects is hugely important.

Unfortunately, Susan, not all of the general public will read through the entire article and actually spend the time to pull the truly relevant bits. All they’ll see is the screaming headline “UN committee hears ‘vast majority’ of women entered Magdalene Laundries voluntarily or with consent” and draw the inference that Magdalene women truly did enter voluntarily. Not that the UN CAT strongly objected to the use of the term ‘voluntary’ and will probably hold the toes of the Irish government to the fire in their pending conclusions. The link is helpful, but again, will the average reader get that far or even bother to click on it?

Going purely on anaecdotal lore, it seems that it was expected that if a woman became pregnant outside of marriage, she would go to a Magdalene, have the child, give it up, then either stay there or return home. I do know of one instance where a woman went by her own violation, but as this was about 1920 it may not be verifiable. In cases personally known to me, two women both had a number of children outside of marriage and never bothered with the Magdalene’s at all, though this was unusual enough to be remarked upon, especially in the mid-20th century.

What I would like to know – if anyone can answer this, please contact me – is what means are available to such children to trace their parents. Did the institutions keep any registrars? As most of them were not born in their home parish, where would their baptisimal records be kept? Would their birth records be entered in the civil records?

I find the number of ‘dislikes’, in response to my JFM colleague Claire McGettrick’s post and those of other posters, rather interesting. No doubt, there are the ubiquitous online news comment trolls who will click ‘dislike’ for the craic. But I have to wonder, do some of these ‘dislikes’ actually represent individuals who *don’t* believe the women who slaved in Magdalene Laundries deserve justice? In fact, this showing may be indicative of the small segment of Irish society who would like nothing better than to continue sweeping this issue under the carpet, subscribing to Mr. Aylward’s half-assed assumption that this was all ‘ancient history’ which we can’t ‘rewrite’. And yes, Irish society was as complicit as State and Church in consigning their own grannies, mothers, sisters, aunties, etc. to these gulags. But continuing to sweep it under the carpet is exactly what led us to the UN. Unfortunately that carpet lump got so large that politicians, government departments, and the Church began stumbling and tripping over it.

They can no longer continue a policy of ‘deny til’ they die’. The UN CAT made it quite clear that there was absolutely nothing ‘voluntary’ about entering a Magdalene Laundry. Or as Mr. O’Mahony so succintly put it above: “…not even the dirt on my shoe would choose to go there voluntarily.” These women (including my own mother) are owed a public apology (which would go a long way to erasing the stain of stigma and shame and give them a voice) as well as just compensation for their unpaid labour and pensions that were never paid into by the religious order. Mr. Aylward and the Department of Justice, along with other government and church spokepersons, cannot continue to deny or diminish their complicity. It has now been thoroughly proven there was state complicity at every level in consigning girls and wolen, either through the industrial school path, via court remand, or in collusion with families and parish priests.

And I agree with Claire: the Journal presented a very skewed piece, definitely lacking in the key elements discussed by the UN CAT. To focus on Mr. Aylward’s denials does injustice to the true outrage expressed by UN CAT members.

The trauma of taking a child from its Mother, no matter what age the Mother, is enough to hollow your soul. Many of those ‘babies’ were sold, and sold to people outside of Ireland. The trauma lives on in our lives today. You can never heal knowing of the separation. How could women, particularly women of the church, do that to another female? Will this country ever end of the suffering that was allowed to go on?

@Laura: I’m sending this on behalf of my JFM colleague, Professor James Smith, who was having difficulty posting it to this site: “Laura, (t)hese referrals from the courts to the Magdalene laundries came about after a woman was found guilty by a judge/jury but given a suspended sentence upon agreeing ‘voluntarily’ to enter a convent and obey the rules of said institution for a designated period of time. If the woman refused, or if she refused the religious rule of the convent (which included the expectation that she work long hours for no pay) the prison sentence would be reintroduced. The same went for women on probation — the only choice these ‘voluntary’ committals had was between slavery in a laundry or a prison sentence. Judges, court clerks, police, family members, employers, society in general … all looked at the religious character of the convent alternative and thanked heaven that the good holy nuns saved their daughters, sisters, cousins from prison … As a number of Magdalene survivors have said in the past, they’d have been better off down in Mountjoy women prison, at least they’d have had a sentence and would know when they were getting out.”

Regarding the issue of consent, there was an article in the Irish Times on 25 September 1996 about the closure of the last laundry in Dublin. The following are extracts:
http://www.irishsalem.com/irish-controversies/the-magdalene-laundries/lastdays-25sept96.php

A controversial chapter of Dublin life will end next month with the closure of what’s believed to be the last of the capital’s convent laundries, that belonging to the Convent of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity in Sean Mac Dermott Street. At the height of its productivity 15O women worked in this laundry. Today 4O women are in residence at the convent, the eldest of them 79, the youngest in her 40s, all of whom will remain living there after the laundry closes on October 25th.

Approximately 40 per cent of the women who came here in the past were single women who became pregnant and were rejected by their families, says the Reverend Mother, Sister Lucy Bruton.

“What we tried to do, in some cases successfully, was to provide money and protection for women in need. Of course we failed, we made mistakes. One of my greatest regrets is that we continued with the status quo rather than pioneering change. If a woman came in today with her daughter I’d tell her to get lost. I’m not saying I’d refuse to take the girl but I’d indicate to the mother that you don’t hide people away,” Sister Lucy says. ………

Of the women there, nine have no known relatives. The relatives of some other women residents, though known, rarely if ever come to see them. Sister Lucy says she regularly telephones the families but they still won’t come to take the women out. A few years ago one woman was not even told by relatives when her mother died, Sister Lucy says. The family delayed telling her because they didn’t want her at the funeral.
………………………… In the 1930s and 1940s, the Sean Mac Dermott Street laundry and residential home would take in over 100 women a year. “This was at a time before the dole, social security and unmarried mothers allowances were available,” Sister Lucy says. “It was a time before families realised that even if a daughter had let them down they didn’t have to hide her away.” ………….

The nuns maintain that they supplied a need for a certain number of people. “You could say that if the sisters had been more enlightened in the 1920s they’d have made different decisions,” she adds. “They might not have tried as hard to hold onto the women who came here. There was a hierarchical attitude on the part of the nuns and in society generally – `them and us’ and we know better. Even so, a lot more women left than stayed. Many of the women didn’t have a hope in hell without us. The alternative in many cases was to go on the streets. Girls have gone on the streets and been murdered. I’ve seen it happen.

“It might have happened a lot more if it hadn’t been for the convent. You can’t judge those times by the standards of today. The Order came to Dublin in 1853, shortly after the Famine. What was the alternative for many women then but the streets?” A number of mildly mentally handicapped women came to the nuns when their mothers died and there was no-one else to care for them. Some of the mentally handicapped women had babies as a result of being sexually exploited. In the view of the nuns these women were in danger and could not have been allowed out. “Others went and were free to go.”

A woman in her twenties with a mild mental handicap was admitted as recently as last year …….

In the laundry’s early years there was no State support. In later years the women received an old age pension. Half the pension goes to the convent for board and lodgings. In addition the Eastern Health Board pays the women £22.50 per week – none of this EHB money goes to the house, says Sister Lucy. For holidays the women are taken to places like Skerries and Greystones.

UN Committee hears Irish Bureaucrat LIE through his teeth. That’s what the headline should have read.

“Speaking on behalf of the Department of Justice, the department’s secretary general Sean Aylward told the UN’s Committee Against Torture that because the alleged events happened “in most cases” a long time ago in privately-run instutitions, information is limited.”

Only if one refuses to listen to the corroborated evidence of many thousands of living witnesses, Mr. Aylward.

The Irish Government has repeatedly sought to protect itself, just as The Vatican has, rather than put it’s hand up, and admit, that as an organisation, it has, in the past, failed the children and the men and women those children became.

Had it the courage and honesty to admit this, it would have become one of the most lauded Governments in the world in terms of human rights. And what is really strange, is that those who operate the system of Governance and The Vatican TODAY could have distanced themselves from the failures of the past by admitting those failures, and facing the music.

But their defensive and offensive position has deepened the mire they now stand in, and it has abused those who survived yet again, adding salt to wounds….

Now, they deserve all the ire that will emerge over the next few decades, and they WILL be punished for this – they could have avoided this, but chose a revolting course of action. Be it on their own heads.

In addition to Jim’s comments, I’d like to offer the following @Laura.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘voluntary’ as:

1: proceeding from the will or from one’s own choice or consent
2: unconstrained by interference : self-determining
3: done by design or intention : intentional
4: of, relating to, subject to, or regulated by the will
5: having power of free choice
6: provided or supported by voluntary action
7: acting or done of one’s own free will without valuable consideration or legal obligation

In addition to Jim’s comments, I’d like to offer the following @Laura.

The Merriam-Webstr dictionary defines ‘voluntary’ as:

1: proceeding from the will or from one’s own choice or consent
2: unconstrained by interference : self-determining
3: done by design or intention : intentional
4: of, relating to, subject to, or regulated by the will
5: having power of free choice
6: provided or supported by voluntary action
7: acting or done of one’s own free will without valuable consideration or legal obligation

While I appreciate the injustice done to the victims of the Catholic Church in Ireland I don’t think that anyone representing the UN can throw stones at Ireland. The UN, after all, has stood idly by and merely observed far greater crimes against humanity.

people have no idea what its like to be in a place like that i was in st patricks home dublin at 16 i did not go in voluntary i will never forget my time there while we were not beaten the things that were said and done will stay with me for the rest of my life. I dont know how the girls and women who suffered serious abuse are coping and i can only hope and pray that our country will look after them as they must take half of the blame .I wont go into detail here but lets not forget this did happen and it needs to be dealt with

It does appear to me that while the entrance of women and girls to such institutions was within the law and seemingly voluntary, it was not done within a purely legal framework. From a legal perspective, it was not coercive – however there is no doubt that there was significant coercion from a social perspective. The alternative for most women was destitution. It was hardly a free choice, though it is certainly true that the arm of law didn’t force women into such places. That does not make it right and doesn’t mean that the state should have turned a blind eye. It just means that essentially the state did not legally force women into those awful places.