Shocking new documentary tells stories of four Irish women forced into Magdalene laundries

Marfran, you havent got a clue. Watch the programme before talking cr@p. There are already films out about this. Women and girls were raped, beaten, abused, starved,murdered in these places etc and plenty had their babies and children stolen from them. Thank feck this catholic state exists no more.

Is this EVER going to be available in the US?

I think its shocking to think of what these women were put through and that they were just young girls at the time it annoys me and makes me angry

I think that these laundries were operating at a time in history when times were hard for all, and they had a social purpose that was not just totally bad, as they are currently painted. Other similar social institutions that were operated to care for the down and out, the people who had no one else, sometimes the mentally unstable, were all operated under different standards that we follow today. There has been great developments in technology, medical care, standards of discipline, open-mindedness in religion, etc. The behaviors then were not so out of the norm as they are made sound today. Many mothers bore their children without pain medication, stitches, or antibiotics, as these were just in the process of invention, and unavailable to the masses. My sister in law was born at home in 1953 here in the USA because my husband's parents had no money for a doctor or a hospital, at that time. I am not saying that those were the best of times, but that they are not so different than how other institutions operated in those times.