Justice for Magdalenes Clarification Regarding Taoiseach Meeting

Justice for Magdalenes
February 10, 2013

http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/press/JFM%20PR%2010-02-13.pdf

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) seeks to clarify the circumstances surrounding a reported meeting

between An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny T.D., and Magdalene survivors.

JFM is a survivor advocacy group and does not “represent” any group of women who were incarcerated in Magdalene Laundries. Rather, JFM seeks to open the doors to justice for all survivors. JFM is however in close contact with a number of survivors who have from time to time asked us to advocate on their behalf, e.g., by organising meetings or submitting testimony to the Inter‐Departmental Committee.

Since its foundation ten years ago, Justice for Magdalenes has had a survivor centred ethos at its core. In other words, survivors' interests must come first — even when it makes our job harder to do. We do not make decisions for survivors, instead, we believe in ensuring that they make their decisions in an informed way. JFM will in turn, always abide by survivors’ wishes.

We at JFM have worked very hard to protect the dignity of survivors and their wish to keep out of the media glare. Most of these women remain in silence because the stigma remains — they have not been apologised to or told by our country's leaders that what happened to them was wrong.