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	Submission to the United Nations Committee against Torture Justice for Magdalenes April 27, 2011 http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/jfm_comm_on_torture_210411.pdf [pdf] Executive Summary 1.1 Ireland's Magdalene Laundries were residential, commercial and for-profit laundries operated by four Irish orders of nuns where between the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922 and 1996, when the last institution closed, a number of girls and women, estimated in the tens of thousands, were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labour and subjected to severe psychological and physical maltreatment. 1.2 The women and girls who suffered in the Magdalene Laundries included those who were perceived to be "promiscuous", were unmarried mothers, were the daughters of unmarried mothers, were considered a burden on their families or the State, had been sexually abused, or had grown up in the care of the Church and State. 1.3 As evidenced in Part 5.3 below, the Irish State was complicit in the incarceration of women and girls in the Magdalene Laundries and dealt commercially with the laundries without ever subjecting them to official regulation or inspection. It is submitted in Part 5 that the Magdalene Laundries abuse meets the requirements for the definition of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under Article 1 and Article 16 CAT. 1.4 The women and their families continue to suffer from their incarceration in the Magdalene Laundries and the torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment to which they were subjected, and from lack of access to records. Yet despite calls from the women and their families, the Irish Human Rights Commission, civil society organisations and local and national government representatives, the Irish State has failed to inquire into the Magdalene Laundries abuse or to afford any restorative justice to the women. 1.5 This Report therefore submits that Ireland is in violation of its obligations under Article 12, Article 13, Article 14 and Article 16 of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. 1.6 The State's ongoing failure to deal with the Magdalene Laundries abuse amounts to continuing degrading treatment in violation of Article 16. The women have still not received a pension for the work which they were forced to carry out, while their poverty has been exacerbated throughout their lives by the denial of educational opportunity which they suffered while incarcerated in the laundries, as well as the psychological and physical injury caused by the abuse. Nor have the women received healthcare or education to assist them in overcoming their trauma and abuse. There is a dearth of personal records of the women, and they continue to feel constrained and silenced by a deep sense of stigma and shame over their incarceration in the Magdalene Laundries, because of the continued denial of justice, lack of inquiry, and lack of acknowledgment that they were not at fault for what they suffered but instead had a grave abuse perpetrated upon them. 1.7 Since Ireland ratified the Convention on 11 April 2002, it has failed in its duty under Articles 12 and 13 to promptly and impartially investigate what there are reasonablegrounds to believe constituted a more than 70-year system of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of women and girls in Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. Likewise it has failed in its obligation under Article 14 to ensure the women's right to redress and compensation. 1.8 These claims are elaborated below, accompanied by background evidence of the torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment suffered by women and girls in the Magdalene Laundries from 1922 – 1996. 1.9 In bringing the Magdalene Laundries abuse to the attention of the Committee, Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) relies on the Committee's decision in A.A. v. Azerbaijaniv to the effect that the Committee may examine alleged violations of the Convention which occurred before Ireland's ratification of the Convention if the effects of these violations continued after ratification and if the effects constitute themselves a violation of the Convention.
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