State must face the torture of the laundries

TORTURE is a strong word.

It conjures images of stonings and floggings in fundamentalist societies, of waterboarding and sensory deprivation by secretive security agencies and of maimings and mutilations by rampaging armies.

The idea that it could be used to describe the treatment of vulnerable women by Christian organisations in a civilised country like Ireland seems absurd. Until you read the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which Ireland ratified nine years ago.