Justice for Magdalenes brings their case to the UN

Kilbarry the remaining women were psychologically battered through years of incarceration with no where to go. Should I give you the benefit of the doubt and say you object to their treatment.Your posting lacks clarity.

culchiewoman it was the mostly country girls who were "jailed"in these religious prisons.Young girls who were rebelling against the narrow mindedness of parents and parish priests with regressive sexual problems due mainly to religious brainwashing. Unfortunately It was not common knowledge as the system (as it stood)was secretive and people were told that they were problem children,sadly it was the church and the parents who were the problem not the children and any blogger who tries to assuage the guilt of the parents,priests and politicians involved is culpable. My heart goes out to you and your family and I hope you can have closure.

@katiemac: not sure if your 'what a load of BS' comment is directed at the reality of what these women suffered or previous posters' comments. At the risk of offense, I'll assume the former. BS it is not. There are living, breathing women who can (and have) attested to what life was like in a Magdalene Laundry. My mother is one of them and BS just isn't in her repertoire. Perhaps you fall into that same camp that produce Holocaust deniers? @searlit and @trealach (the latter's post just beggars belief): this was not only Irish-on-Irish abuse, it was woman-on-woman abuse. Nuns ran these gulags and after years and years spent in the same unchanging, institutional environment as their 'charges', began to see them as less than human (common in correctional professions, c.f. Stanford Prison Experiment). Ergo, it was that much easier to abuse the girls (yes, girls -- as young as 12) and women. Trealach, you can natter on as much as you want about British abuse of the Irish; but when the Irish State (and Catholic Church) can't see fit to pay its own citizens a living wage (or pension), provide safe working conditions and allow them freedom of movement and discourse, then you're damned skippy I'm not 'moving past' it. Nor is it ancient history...there are living Magdalene survivors. Get over yourself and don't worry...we won't take it out of YOUR pocket, despite that Irish society knew about these places and stood idly by allowing them to exist.

@Kilbarry, don't try to whitewash it. By the nineties, things had changed compared to the 50's thru 70's.

Is anybody aware that when the laundries closed down in the 1990s many women remained with the nuns and some are there still? The following is an extract from Irish Times article on 25 Sept 1996 on the closing of last laundry in Sean McDermott St Dublin: ... "At the height of its productivity 15O women worked in this laundry. Today 40 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. ......A woman in her twenties with a mild mental handicap was admitted as recently as last year." .... http://irishsalem.com/irish-controversies/the-magdalene-laundries/lastdays-25sept96.php ......Should these women be "compensated"? Should the police remove them forcibly?

It amazes me that a posting by pro nationalists or vilifying the church seems to get the "forget the past" tag. Collette should bear a thought for the living and the living hell they endured at the hands of the anti Christ nuns who retire to their respective convents,Jail the B!!ches I say.

Trealach, Why bow to the past, maybe this issue will set a precedent and open, if not the gates then a window.

Nuns,priest,public servants and politicians involved in this disgraceful episode should be incarcerated,starting with the bishops who allowed these reprehensible termagants called nuns to exist. A bunch of sanctimonious hypocrites the lot of them.

@ Trealach, this was state sanctioned abuse of women who became pregnant. This is Irish on Irish abuse. Please don't compare it to what the British did to The Irish.

"In November 2010, the Irish Human Rights Commission released a report that said there is sufficient evidence of state responsibility for unlawful imprisonment, servitude, forced labour and cruel and degrading treatment, ...." The same evidence exists of British treatment of the Irish People, yet we are told to "Bow to the past" and move on. Time these people did the same, or is there a different set of standards for them?

A terrible blot on the Irish. Of course, when the Irish catholics succumbed to Rome, everything started going downhill, especially for women!

The organizations responsible must be held accountable for there to be any justice for the Magdelenes that are still alive and for the memory of those that died.

Women of the world demand justice for the Magdelenes!

It's about time the perpetrators (ALL of them) of such inhumane treatment were brought to justice!

God bless you in your endeavors for justice from the vatican or anywhere. Such inhumane treatment needs to be punished here on earth and certainly in hell.