Fight for justice continues

The Magdalene laundry women have been boosted by a report from the Irish Human Rights Commission that calls for a statutory inquiry into the institutions, writes Claire O’Sullivan.

GIRLS as young as 11 were sent to the Magdalene laundries by priests. Girls with intellectual disabilities also ended up there. There were women who were only supposed to be there for a short period on remand or on probation and others who were supposed to only stay for the length of their court probation.

And, then there were the legions of women — who due to pregnancies outside marriage and often rape — were considered “fallen” and so were banished to these ominous buildings, uncertain if they’d ever come back out.

It is impossible to ascertain the exact number of women who were sent to ‘the laundries’ as, in spite of the work completed by Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) over the past 18 months, the amount of records in the public domain is limited.

Referring to the “severe lack of publicly available material” on these women, senior inquiry and legal officer with the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC), Sinéad Lucey, said that the statutory inquiry that her organisation demanded yesterday would require such documentation.

All such data, she presumed, “was in the hands of the religious orders”.

These same religious orders have far from embraced the idea of redress for the Magdalenes, however. This summer they refused to meet with JFM collectively, through CORI, even though Cardinal Seán Brady, when he met with the advocacy group, suggested it would be a good idea.

The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sister of Lady of Charity also refused to meet individually with JFM. The Sisters of Mercy and Sisters of Charity, meanwhile, didn’t even respond to a JFM written request for a meeting.

According to Boston College professor and JFM committee member, Jim Smith, “it is difficult not to interpret these responses as signalling the congregations’ absolute denial of responsibility in this regard”.

It is against this difficult background that IHRC commissioner Olive Braiden warned that, while the laundries were privately owned by the religious, “only the state can address the outstanding responsibility” to the Magdalene women.

“It is up to the state then to negotiate with the religious as a private group,” she said.

Last summer, JFM asked her organisation to conduct a full inquiry into the treatment of women and girls in Magdalene laundries.

A detailed internal assessment of the documentation supplied by JFM was analysed and the IHRC came to the shocking conclusion that yes, there was clear state involvement where women and girls entered the laundries after a courts process.

They also concluded that the treatment of these women by the religious “appears to have been harsh” and that there is no clear information on how, if ever, they left these laundries.

The IHRC also warned that the state may have breached its obligations under the 1930 Forced Labour Act and the European Convention for Human Rights for engaging with an organisation involved in forced labour, for trading commercially with such organisations and for engaging with an institution where people were potentially being held “in servitude”.

According to Prof Smith, yesterday’s assessment was “an important milestone in JFM’s ongoing campaign for justice” and “an important validation of the evidence we have acquired.”

However, they know they are still a long way from an apology and redress for the Magdalene women.

The calamitous state of the economy means the Government won’t easily countenance another costly redress scheme.

To date, the excuse made by the Government to avoid liability is that the state never regulated or inspected the laundries, unlike the industrial schools. But did they not have a wider responsibility to the girls and women of the state to protect them from abuse?

Just last summer, Department of Justice officials acknowledged that abuse took place in the laundries, but that any apology that they could consider making would have to be vetted by the Attorney General to “absolutely guarantee no liability on the state”.

A Government spokesman yesterday said the IHRC report will be referred to the Attorney General, but noted that the commission could have undertaken a full enquiry itself into the matter under the legislation that established it.

The IHRC, in turn, claimed that this would have fallen short of JFM’s long-term objectives and that due to their detailed legal work, “one of the main purposes of the inquiry has, at least, been established”.

They also said that they don’t have the resources to undertake such an inquiry.

Anyhow, in the words of IHRC president, Maurice Manning, there is a need for Government to script the final chapter in this sorry tale.

“There are certain standards and values that are so fundamental that they can’t be brushed aside because of the very real economic problems that we have today… This is not a historical aberration that we can forget about. This is part of a bigger, more tragic picture — a lack of oversight for the most vulnerable which still has a currency today.

“The dignity and worth of these women must be belatedly acknowledged by the state”.

Prof Smith is adamant that the state is just killing time or operating a “deny ‘til they die” policy as the women are now so aged.

JFM is arguing these elderly women deserve to hear the words “sorry” before they die and an admittance of the terrible wrongdoing inflicted upon them. JFM are also seeking compensation for their ill-treatment and a pension to make up for the fact that many were robbed of an education and instead worked for nothing for years.

They have warned the state that these women will not take part in an adversarial redress structure like the former industrial school pupils.

Picture: Olive Braiden, commissioner at the Irish Human Rights Commission.