Tanya Ward: No Closure without Compensation for Laundry Victims

Irish Independent
February 6, 2013

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/tanya-ward-no-closure-without-compensation-for-laundry-victims-3377901.html

[Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries]

Senator Martin McAleese's report confirms what many of us knew already. Thousands of girls and women were placed in Magdalene Laundries throughout the country. Robbed of their liberty, dignity and forced to work in harsh conditions, in many ways they were denied basic human rights.

The most important fact uncovered in this report is that it finally sheds light on how the Irish State played a direct role in forcing children and women into these laundries, finding that 26.5pc of referrals were made by people acting in an official capacity.

These girls and women were sent there by the courts because of prison overcrowding. Some were sent 'under supervision' after spending time in industrial schools. Others were sent there by health authorities when foster care placements broke down or when children were simply homeless.

Once again the report forces us to ask questions about Irish society and the complicit role that we played. It reveals that many children were placed there by their families because of a physical or intellectual disability, while others were forced into the laundries for basic discipline or for breaking social mores.