Ireland sent girls women to catholic workhouses until 1996

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/05/16854772-ireland-sent-girls-women-to-catholic-workhouses-until-1996-report-finds?lite

By Ian Johnston, Staff Writer, NBC News

Ireland’s government was directly involved in sending girls and women to work for nothing in laundries run by Catholic orders, a landmark report published Tuesday concluded.

The report by Irish Senator Martin McAleese found that orphans and abused, neglected or unruly children were among more than 10,000 sent to the Magdalen Laundries from 1922 to 1996.

Some had committed minor crimes, others were simply homeless or poor. Women with mental or physical disabilities and some people with psychiatric illness also found themselves in the laundries.

Their average age, the report found, was 23, but the youngest child was just nine and the oldest known entrant was 89.

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And in June 2011, the United Nations’ Committee on Torture highlighted allegations of "physical, emotional abuses and other ill-treatment" and said it was "gravely concerned" at Ireland’s failure to "protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined."

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The report found that more than a quarter of referrals were "made or facilitated" by the government. Some 61 percent spent less than a year at the facilities, but 7.7 percent were there for 10 years or more.

Some of the women were brought to the laundries by Ireland’s police, the Gardai, "on a more ad hoc or informal basis, for instance where a woman was temporarily homeless; or where, in the years prior to out-of-hours health services, a juvenile girl needed overnight accommodation," the report said.

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