By Dan Buckley and Claire O’Sullivan

Saturday, June 11, 2011

THE four religious congregations that ran the Magdalene houses in Ireland have agreed to help achieve justice for thousands of women who were forced to work in the laundries.

Acknowledging the workhouses as a “dark story of Irish society”, a joint statement issued on behalf of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, Religious Sisters of Charity, Sisters of Mercy and the Good Shepherd Sisters includes a promise to assist any official investigation into the running of the homes.

The Government is under international pressure to establish a judicial inquiry following a call by a UN committee last Monday to investigate reports that women and girls sent to work in the laundries suffered widespread abuse.

The statement, issued through the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI), describes the issue as a “sad, complex and dark story of Irish society that extends over 150 years”. It continues: “As the religious congregations, who, in good faith, took over and ran 10 Magdalene homes during part or most of that time and as congregations still in relationship with many residents and former residents, we are willing to participate in any inquiry that will bring greater clarity, understanding, healing and justice in the interests of all the women involved.”

The statement was welcomed by groups seeking justice for the women, in particular the Justice for Magdalene (JFM) group. Spokesman Professor Jim Smith called it “a positive first step”.

Next Tuesday, the Cabinet is due to discuss reports on the laundries by the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Geneva-based UN Committee Against Torture, both of which criticised the state’s failure to protect the women.

The UN panel’s report recommended that the Government “in appropriate cases, prosecute and punish the perpetrators with penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offences committed”.

Estimates put the numbers who passed through the laundries from 1922 to 1996 at 30,000.

Last night, JFM stressed it is not seeking a redress board-style legal adversarial process.

“JFM is very conscious of the current economic climate and we have no desire to propose anything that lines the pockets of Ireland’s legal profession,” Prof Smith said.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, June 11, 2011

JAMES SMITH

Many victims are elderly and need a response now – even if a redress scheme takes longer

IT BEGAN with a phone call. “Are you the man who wrote the Magdalene book?” A voice, hesitant and frail, asked from the other end of my office phone. She called to share her story. She wanted someone to listen. She needed me to understand.

Her mother died when she was seven. Initially, she and a younger sister were cared for within the extended family. The farm required her father’s attention. At 14, he deposited her with the Good Shepherd nuns in New Ross. Her sister was sent to the congregation’s Limerick convent.

The Good Shepherd Sisters managed industrial schools at both these locations. They also operated a reformatory school for girls in Limerick. But the two teenage sisters were put to work with the adult women in the Magdalene laundry. They remained enslaved, unpaid for their labour, for almost five years.

Until recently, she lived near Boston. Last year, a volunteer from advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes helped her to apply for a statutory old-age pension. After delays and misplaced paperwork, she was told the years working in the laundries do not count towards her pension, which amounts to €12.40 a week. After the banking and currency conversion fees kick in (an Irish bank), she is left with $7.50 a week. $7.50 for years of forced and compulsory labour. $7.50 for a lost childhood. $7.50 for a life lived with misplaced shame.

Like other women in the Magdalene institutions, she worked cleaning dirty laundry as part of a for-profit commercial enterprise. They were locked in at night, prison-like with bars on windows. They were denied their given names.

Society refers to them pejoratively as “fallen women”. But, they ended up at the laundries for many reasons (signed in by families, brought there by the local Garda, transferred from an industrial school or a mother-and-baby home, referred via the courts, banished for being the victims of sexual violence, etc). They had to be signed out by a family member or have a place of employment to go to. Many remained to live, work, and ultimately die behind convent walls – Justice for Magdalenes counts over 600 human remains at cemeteries attached to just four of the 10 laundries.

The group’s campaign is seeking restorative justice – an apology, reparations, and access to records – from the State. This past week, the UN Committee Against Torture, in response to our submission, recommended that the Government institute a “prompt, independent, and thorough investigation”, and “prosecute and punish perpetrators”, and “ensure that all victims obtain redress”.

The State has one year to demonstrate the measures taken to give effect to this unequivocal recommendation.

In one year’s time the woman who contacted me will be 77. She needs help today. She wants an apology now. She is entitled to compensation before she dies – money that in her case is earmarked to secure a “decent, respectable funeral”. And, she is in no way exceptional. Justice for Magdalenes speaks to many women asking for the same things. Their needs form the basis for the restorative justice and reparations scheme that we submitted to the Minister for Justice at the end of March.

No one in the group questions that many members of the current Government are sympathetic to the women’s plight. Alan Shatter’s record is well known and respected, as is that of Kathleen Lynch, Ruairí Quinn and Joan Burton, among others. We appreciate that the new Government might still need time to respond appropriately to both the Irish Human Rights Commission and UN Committee Against Torture recommendations.

The group recognises that no one benefits from a rushed and/or flawed reparations’ scheme – lessons must be learned from the Residential Institutions Redress Board. Better to take an extra three months and get it right. And yet, there is little time to waste.

Consequently, it is calling on the Government to issue an apology now to the women who suffered this horrendous abuse. It is possible to offer a meaningful apology first, and then put in place the Government’s response to the standing recommendations. After all, in 1999 the apology came first, before the legislation, before the Redress Board, and before the Ryan Commission. It was the right thing to do then. It is the right thing to do now.

On behalf of Justice for Magdalenes and on behalf of a 76-year-old woman who retains her Irish citizenship, I am asking our Government to apologise to all the women who spent time in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.

Doing so signals that our leaders care about fairness, not political expediency. It tells the world that ours is a moral society, no longer the moralistic society of old. It gives dignity to the most vulnerable among us, and in doing so dignifies us all.

James Smith is an associate professor in the English Department and Irish Studies Program at Boston College. He is the author of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (2008) and serves on Justice for Magdalenes’ advisory committee

The Sunday Times Published: 12 June 2011

Justine McCarthy: Sorry still seems to be the hardest word

For a man who likes to hear an apology, Kenny has refused to offer one to the Irish women held captive in Magdalene laundries and made to work as slaves

Enda Kenny is a man who appreciates an apology. When he was leader of the opposition, RTE abjectly apologised to him after somebody phoned Liveline and erroneously accused him of queue-jumping in an airport for a Dublin-bound flight.
Last year, he thundered that Brian Cowen, as Taoiseach, should apologise to the people of Ireland for the state of the economy. An expression of contrition was essential, he argued, for the 450,000 people out of work, and the many thousands more emigrating, in negative equity and who had lost their life savings in bank shares.
Only a few months ago, Kenny refused to participate in the first leaders’ debate of the general election campaign because Vincent Browne, the journalist chairing it, had melodramatically advised him the previous September, when Kenny’s poll ratings were uninspiring, to go and shoot himself. Browne apologised, but Kenny still wouldn’t come out to play in the debate.

Last Tuesday in the Dail, the taoiseach was repeatedly asked if he would offer an apology to the uncounted number of Irish women who were held captive in Magdalene laundries and made to work as slaves since the foundation of the state. He wouldn’t. For a man who likes to hear “sorry”, he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
One woman waiting for it is aged 76 and living in America. She slave-laboured in one of the for-profit Magdalene workhouses from the age of 14 to 19. Then, the nuns who ran it transferred her to an orthopaedic hospital where she worked as a skivvy.

Like so many of the victims catalogued in the Ryan Report on abuse in residential institutions, she fled Ireland as soon as she could, and stayed away.
In October 2008, this woman phoned James M Smith, associate professor of English at Boston College, because she had read his academic, annotated study, Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, published by Notre Dame Press and costing $28 (€19.49). The woman told Smith she had disciplined herself to read a set number of pages each day, because she was a Magdalene survivor. Smith helped her apply for a pension from the Irish state. Ireland offered her €12.40 a week, minus the bank fee for transferring the money and the cost of currency conversion. It leaves her with $7.50 and the memories that never go away.

Females — called “penitents” — were incarcerated in the Magdalene laundries for perceived sins of the flesh, even including the anticipated sins of pretty girls deemed headed for a fall because of their looks. Some were sinned against; raped by family members, employers or other male figures of authority, maybe even priests. The Department of Justice’s excuse for denying recompense to survivors of the laundries is that they were private operations, run by four orders of nuns (the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, the Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity) and, therefore, the state is not liable in law.

The state tried, for a while — trotting out the same mantra about the legions of children abused, neglected and enslaved in church-run residential institutions — but got short shrift. The fact is that Mother Ireland used the laundries as places of detention. Judges sent girls there. Probation officers escorted them there, and never went back to release them when the time was up.
The United Nations Committee Against Torture (Uncat) has exposed as fallacy the state’s defence that females entered the laundries voluntarily or, if they were minors, with the consent of their parents or guardians. In Geneva on May 24, Felice Gaer, the committee chairwoman. said: “We had testimony about locked doors and people being captured by the police and returned to the institutions.” She asked if the state had made any efforts to inspect or regulate the laundries or to ensure acts of torture were not being perpetrated behind their walls.
Last week, Uncat expressed “grave concern” at Ireland’s failure to promptly investigate allegations of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of females in the Magdelene laundries, “amounting to breaches of the [UN] convention”.
It wants to see independent investigations get under way, perpetrators prosecuted and punished, a channel of redress for victims, and an enforceable right to compensation. Furthermore, it wants a progress report within 12 months.
The auguries are not good. When an advocacy group, Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) — mostly academics, half of whom are based overseas — wrote to Sr Marianne O’Connor, director-general of the Conference of Religious in Ireland (Cori) on July 9, 2010, requesting a meeting, it waited three months for a reply. No, was the answer.
Something else is troubling. Last December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that a woman’s human rights had been violated by the Irish state’s abortion laws when she had to go abroad to terminate a pregnancy while she was in remission from cancer. Kenny, then opposition leader, immediately refused to make a commitment to a referendum if he became taoiseach, offering instead to pass the hot-potato issue to yet another all-party Oireachtas committee. It mirrored a statement he made to the Irish Catholic newspaper four years ago, and which was welcomed by the Pro-Life Campaign, that, if he became taoiseach, he would not introduce abortion legislation.
This is significant because, at the core of both the Magadelene laundries scandal and the continuing hypocrisy of the Irish state turning a blind eye to more than 4,000 of its citizens annually seeking abortions abroad, is a warped attitude to women’s sexuality.
Future generations may find themselves investigating why females were banished, albeit temporarily, because they had an unviable pregnancy or were pregnant from rape, despite the X case ruling entitling them to abortion under certain circumstances.
Some people argue that for the taoiseach to make an apology to the Magdalene women now would be meaningless because a forced apology is no apology. Not true. Were Kenny to do so, he would be speaking for the state, just as David Cameron was when the British prime minister apologised for Bloody Sunday, or as the Australian state does every year when it has its day of atonement for the maltreatment of Aboriginal people.
Until the Irish state says sorry to the Magdalene women, it is perpetuating the idea of “fallen women” and that they need to be punished.
justine.mccarthy@sunday-times.ie

For Immediate Release, 6th June 2011, 11.30am

UPDATE: State given one year to implement Magdalene recommendations

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), the survivor advocacy group is welcoming the UN Committee Against Torture’s (UNCAT) request that the Irish State provide information within one year on measures taken to give effect to the Committee’s recommendations. The Magdalene Laundries recommendation is one of four “follow-up” issues in the Concluding Observations that the State is being asked to update the Committee on within one year.

JFM Co-ordinating Committee Director Mari Steed said: “UNCAT’s request for a prompt response from the Irish State reinforces JFM’s assertion that this is a population of women who are ageing and elderly and therefore the time to act is now.”

JFM reiterates its call on the Irish State to act immediately on foot of UNCAT’s recommendations and issue a formal apology to all survivors of the Magdalene Laundries and immediately establish a statutory inquiry into these abuses.

[ENDS]

(i) Section from UNCAT “Concluding Observations”:
The Magdalene laundries recommendation is one of four in the “Concluding Observations” that the State is being asked to update the committee on within one year –
Paragraph thirty three states (pg. 10):

33. The Committee requests the State party to provide, within one year, follow-up information in response to the Committee’s recommendations contained in paragraphs 9, 21, 22 and 26 of the present document.

Magdalene Laundries paragraph is number 22:
Magdalene Laundries
22. The Committee is gravely concerned at the failure by the State party to protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined between 1922 and 1996 in the Magdalene Laundries, by failing to regulate their operations and inspect them, where it is alleged that physical, emotional abuses and other ill-treatment were committed amounting to breaches of the Convention. The Committee is also expresses grave concern at the failure by the State party to institute prompt, independent and thorough investigation into the allegations of ill-treatment perpetrated on girls and women in the Magdalene Laundries. (articles 2, 12, 13, 14 and 16)
The Committee recommends that the State party should institute prompt, independent, and thorough investigations into all allegations of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that were allegedly committed in the Magdalene Laundries, and, in appropriate cases, prosecute and punish the perpetrators with penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offences committed, and ensure that all victims obtain redress and have an enforceable right to compensation including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible.

From the UNCAT Website:
This procedure consists of identifying a limited number of recommendations as requiring additional information following the consideration of the State party’s report, as established under rule 68 of its Rules of procedure. The Committee identifies these recommendations (normally between three and six) because they are serious, protective, and are considered to be accomplished within a one year period (A/60/44, para. 115).
The States parties are requested to provide within one year information on the measures taken to give effect to these follow-up recommendations, which are clearly identified in a paragraph at the end of the concluding observations. The Committee is of the view that this follow-up procedure aims “to make more effective the struggle against torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment”, as articulated in the preamble of the Convention.?
For Immediate Release, 6th June 2011

Original Press Release

JFM welcomes UN Committee recommendation for statutory inquiry and redress for Magdalenes, prosecution and punishment of perpetrators

The UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) today issued its “Concluding Observations” following the first examination of the Irish State under the UN Convention Against Torture. The Committee reiterated its calls for an independent investigation into the Magdalene Laundries abuse and redress for the women who suffered. It also recommended that the State “prosecute and punish the perpetrators with penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offences committed.”

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), the survivor advocacy group, is now calling on the Irish State to act immediately on foot of UNCAT’s recommendations and issue a formal apology to all survivors of the Magdalene Laundries and immediately establish a statutory inquiry into these abuses.

JFM’s submission to UNCAT, written by Maeve O’Rourke (Harvard Law School 2010 Global Human Rights Fellow), and which includes testimonies from four women who spent time in the Laundries, highlights the continuing degrading treatment that survivors are suffering today because of the government’s ongoing failure to apologise, investigate and compensate for the abuse.

At the examination in Geneva on 24th May 2011, acting UNCAT Chairperson Felice Gaer, questioned the government’s statement that “the vast majority of women who went to these institutions went there voluntarily, or if they were minors, with the consent of their parents or guardians”. (Links to videos below)

She said, “We had testimony about locked doors and people being captured by the police and returned to the institutions – so there’s State involvement as well.” She added, “There were physical barriers and there seems to have been an intent to confine people” and she stated “I think ‘voluntary’ means that one makes a choice; I think that ‘voluntary’ means that one is informed; I think that ‘voluntary’ means that one is then free to leave. I think it means that there is nothing coercive in this context.” She asked, “Can you identify any examples of efforts by State authorities to inspect or regulate these facilities? Were they exempt from standards? And can you tell us what means were taken to ensure that there were no acts or omissions that amount to torture”?

James Smith, Associate Professor at Boston College and a member of JFM’s Advisory Committee, said, “Today’s UN recommendation undermines the government’s argument that this abuse happened ‘a considerable time ago in private institutions’. It rebuts the State’s assertion that the ‘vast majority’ of women entered the Laundries ‘voluntarily’. And, it underscores that the State’s own definition of torture includes the crime of omission with respect to ensuring due diligence to prevent torture. The State failed the women and young girls in the Laundries, and now the UN is saying not only that Ireland can, but that it must, make right its own history in this regard.”

Maeve O’Rourke, who presented JFM’s submission to the Committee, said: ”The UN torture committee has added its voice to the Irish Human Rights Commission’s to remind the Irish government that the women who spent time in Magdalene Laundries have human rights which demand respect today. Having suffered torture or ill-treatment, in which the state directly participated and which it knowingly failed to prevent, the women have the ongoing right to an investigation, an apology, redress and treatment with dignity. I am hopeful that, before it is too late, the government will honour its obligations to these women who suffered such injustice in the past.”

JFM Co-ordinating Committee Director Mari Steed said “Magdalene laundry survivors currently receive no pension reflecting the years they worked for no wages. Many of the women suffer long term physical effects from years of hard labour in the Laundries. All of the women speak of the psychological trauma of their experiences in the Laundries, in many cases the trauma of arriving in a laundry as young girls has stayed with them throughout their lives. We call on the Minister for Justice to implement a scheme in line with the ‘Restorative Justice and Reparations Scheme’ submitted to Mr. Shatter in March by JFM. UNCAT committee member Nora Sveaass commended JFM for this scheme, saying that the State should look at it more closely.”

[ENDS]
———————————————————————————————————————-

(i) United Nations Committee Against Torture, “Concluding Observations”

Committee against Torture
Forty-sixth session
9 May-3 June 2011
Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 19 of the Convention

ADVANCED UNEDITED VERSION

Concluding observations of the Committee against Torture
Ireland
Magdalene Laundries
22. The Committee is gravely concerned at the failure by the State party to protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined between 1922 and 1996 in the Magdalene Laundries, by failing to regulate their operations and inspect them, where it is alleged that physical, emotional abuses and other ill-treatment were committed amounting to breaches of the Convention. The Committee is also expresses grave concern at the failure by the State party to institute prompt, independent and thorough investigation into the allegations of ill-treatment perpetrated on girls and women in the Magdalene Laundries. (articles 2, 12, 13, 14 and 16)
The Committee recommends that the State party should institute prompt, independent, and thorough investigations into all allegations of torture, and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment that were allegedly committed in the Magdalene Laundries, and, in appropriate cases, prosecute and punish the perpetrators with penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offences committed, and ensure that all victims obtain redress and have an enforceable right to compensation including the means for as full rehabilitation as possible.

(ii) Justice For Magdalenes (JFM) Campaign Summary
JFM is a survivor advocacy group working to bring about a “Restorative Justice and Reparations Scheme,” including an apology and redress, for all survivors of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.

No one has apologized for the abuse suffered in these particular institutions.

The Magdalene laundries were omitted from the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002, and consequently the Residential Institutions Redress Board excludes Magdalene survivors.

Historical Context
• Magdalene Laundries were institutions operated by nuns in which women, called “penitents,” worked at laundry and other for-profit enterprises
• these women were denied freedom of movement, they were never paid for their labour, and they were denied their given names and identities
• the daily routine emphasized prayer, silence, and work
• women had to be signed out of the Magdalene
• many remained to live, work, and ultimately die, behind convent walls
• after 1922, Magdalene Laundries were operated by The Sisters of Mercy (Galway and Dun Laoghaire), The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity (Drumcondra and Sean MacDermott Street, Dublin), the Sisters of Charity (Donnybrook and Cork), and the Good Shepherd Sisters (Limerick, Cork, Waterford and New Ross)
• all four Congregations are members of CORI and also managed State residential institutions
• the nuns do not release records for women entering the Laundries after 1 January 1900
• the last Magdalene ceased operating as a commercial laundry on 25 October 1996.

JFM’s Campaign to Establish State Complicity
Mr. Batt O’Keeffe, T.D., then Minister for Education and Science, rejected JFM’s proposal for an apology and distinct redress scheme on 4 September 2009. He claimed:
• the State is only liable for children transferred from residential institutions
• the Laundries were privately owned and operated
• the State did not refer individuals nor was it complicit in referring individuals to the Laundries

JFM contends that the State was always complicit in the Laundries’ operation. Moreover, this complicity, along with the State’s omission of due diligence to regulate or inspect the Laundries, breached the Magdalene women’s constitutional and human rights.

JFM asserts that the Irish State:
• was aware of the nature and function of the Magdalene Laundries
• was aware that there was no statutory basis for the courts’ use of the Laundries
• enacted legislation to enable the use of one laundry as a remand home
• was aware that children and adolescent girls were confined in the Laundries as late as 1970
• maintained a “special provision” whereby women giving birth to a second child outside marriage at a Mother-and-Baby could be transferred directly to a Magdalene laundry
• paid capitation grants to Magdalene Laundries for the confinement of “problem girls”
• never inspected, licensed or certified these home as “Approved” institutions
• has yet to produce records for the women it referred to the Laundries
• refuses to admit its complicity in referring women to the Magdalene Laundries
• refuses to acknowledge its failure to protect women’s constitutional rights
• refuses to apologize for its role in referring women to the Laundries and therefore impedes “restorative justice” for this population of institutional survivors.

JFM’s Campaign to Engage the Catholic Religious Congregations
JFM met with Cardinal Sean Brady in June 2010. He characterised our presentation as “fair and balanced.” And, as reported by The Irish Times, he encouraged JFM to “continue its efforts to establish dialogue and a process of justice and healing for all concerned.”

On the Cardinal’s recommendation, JFM wrote to Sr. Marianne O’Connor, CORI’s Director General, on 9 July 2010 and requested the opportunity to present its campaign. On 1st October 2010, Sr. O’Connor informed JFM that CORI would not meet with the group.

JFM has written to the four religious congregations on four separate occasions. To-date, none of the congregations are willing to meet with JFM.

JFM’s Submission to the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC)
JFM submitted an inquiry application to the IHRC in June 2010. The submission focused on the State’s obligation to protect the women’s constitutional and human rights despite the fact that the abuse took place in “private institutions.”

The IHRC Assessment, published on 9 Nov. 2010, concluded that there was significant evidence that the State failed to protect women and young girls from “arbitrary detention,” “forced and compulsory labour,” and “servitude.” The Assessment recommends “that a statutory mechanism be established to investigate the matters advanced by JFM and in appropriate cases to grant redress where warranted.”

Taoiseach Brian Cowen referred the IHRC Assessment for review to the Office of the Attorney General last. JFM is still waiting for the government’s official response.

JFM’s Submission to the UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT)
JFM made a formal submission to UNCAT as part of the first ever examination of Ireland on 23 and 24 May 2011. The submission, including four survivor testimonies, highlights the continuing degrading treatment that the Magdalene women are suffering today because of the government’s ongoing failure to apologise, investigate and compensate for the abuse.

During the UNCAT examination, Committee members insisted that the State has an obligation to conduct an independent investigation into abuses in the Laundries as stipulated by Articles 12 and 13 of the Convention, and to ensure that survivors obtain redress in accordance with Article 14.

Further information about our campaign can be found at www.magdalenelaundries.com.

(iii) Videos:

UNCAT Session 23rd May 2011

Rapporteur Myrna Kleopas:

Rapporteur Kleopas (including Ryan Report):

Committee Member Nora Sveaass

UNCAT Session 24th May 2011

Acting Chairperson Felice Gaer

Rapporteur Myrna Kleopas:

Committee Member Nora Sveaass

Committee Member Xuexian Wang

Sean Aylward initial response:

Sean Aylward additional comments:

(iv) National Counselling Service

The National Counselling Service was set up by the HSE to provide counselling services (free of charge) to adults who have experienced child abuse, with priority given to adult survivors of institutional abuse in Ireland.
North East 1800 234 117
North Dublin 1800 234 110
North West 1800 234 119
West 1800 234 114
Mid-west 1800 234 115
Midlands 1800 234 113
Dublin South West/Kildare/West Wicklow 1800 234 112
South Dublin & East Wicklow 1800 234 111
Kerry & Cork 1800 234 116
South East 1800 234 118

By Jennifer Hough

24th of May, 2011

A UN committee urged the Government to set up an independent investigation into human rights violations in the Magdalene Laundries and give redress to the women who suffered because of the institutions.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) said the women should be given an apology as an acknowledgement of what happened so they could “get their dignity back”.

Members of UNCAT yesterday asked government representatives in Geneva about its intentions to investigate the Magdalene laundries abuse promptly, impartially and comprehensively, in accordance with its obligations under Articles 12 and 13 of the convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The committee also requested information from the state as to how it will ensure redress and compensation for the women who suffered in the laundries, in line with its obligation under Article 14 of the convention.

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), the survivor advocacy group, calling on the Irish Government to act immediately and initiate an independent investigation into human rights violations suffered by the women.

JFM spokeswoman, Claire McGettrick, said the state could fulfil its responsibilities by obtaining reparations from the Catholic Church for its part in the women’s abuse. She said the majority of survivors are elderly, and adversarial models of inquiry and redress would have the opposite effect of adding to their pain and sense of injustice.

Maeve O’Rourke, who presented JFM’s submission to the committee, said UNCAT, along with the Irish Human Rights Commission, had taken an extremely serious view of the abuse of women and girls in the Magdalene Laundries and the state’s responsibility for it.

“Yesterday’s comments by the committee members unequivocally recognise the rights of the women who are still alive to an investigation, an apology, redress and treatment with dignity.”

Meanwhile, a delegation from the Bethany Home survivors group will today meet Education Minister Ruairi Quinn at Leinster House

Derek Leinster, chairman of the group, said he was very grateful to the minister for agreeing to meet with them. The delegation will put its case to the minister in the hope that the Bethany Home is included in the Redress scheme, which awards compensation to victims of institutional abuse.

Last year unmarked graves of 219 Bethany children who died between 1922-49, were discovered in Mount Jerome Cemetery, Dublin 8, by Bethany researcher Niall Meehan.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Press Release, 23 May 2011 — For Immediate Release

UN calls on Ireland to investigate Magdalene Laundries abuse

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), the survivor advocacy group, is calling on the Irish government to act immediately on foot of calls from members of the United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) for an independent investigation into human rights violations in the Magdalene Laundries and redress for the women who suffered.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture (UNCAT) today examined Ireland for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland. Today’s examination follows the “closed” NGO Briefing Session on Friday last, when JFM was invited to make a statement before the Committee (copy attached, below). Tomorrow afternoon, the Committee will hear responses from the Irish government delegation to the questions asked today.

At today’s examination, Committee members asked numerous questions of the Irish government about its intentions to investigate the Magdalene laundries abuse promptly, impartially and comprehensively, in accordance with its obligations under articles 12 and 13 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. See below for summaries and quotes from four members of the Committee.

The Committee also requested information from the state as to how it will ensure redress and compensation for the women who suffered in the Magdalene Laundries, in line with its obligation under Article 14 of the Convention.

JFM PRO Claire McGettrick said: “JFM believes the State can fulfil its responsibilities by obtaining reparations from the Catholic Church for its part in the women’s abuse. The majority of survivors are aging and elderly, and adversarial models of inquiry and redress would have the opposite effect of adding to their pain and sense of injustice.”

Maeve O’Rourke, who presented JFM’s submission to the Committee, said: “The UN Committee against Torture, along with the Irish Human Rights Commission, has taken an extremely serious view of the abuse of women and girls in the Magdalene Laundries and the state’s responsibility for it. Today’s comments by the Committee members unequivocally recognise the rights of the women who are still alive to an investigation, an apology, redress and treatment with dignity. I am hopeful that the Irish government will now take this opportunity to respect the human rights of these women, which for so long have been disregarded.”

Professor James Smith (Boston College), member of JFM’s advisory committee, said: “JFM today calls on the Irish state, to offer a formal state apology to all survivors of the Magdalene laundries and that the government immediately establish a statutory inquiry into these abuses. To do otherwise is to cause additional pain and suffering to the women and thereby bring further shame on our nation. The women and their children deserve justice now.”

NOTE to Editors: (i) Summary of UNCAT members comments and quotations
(ii) A copy of JFM’s Statement from Friday’s NGO Briefing Session
(iii) Maeve O’Rourke is available for interviews from Geneva

By Claire O’Sullivan
Friday, 20th May 2011
THE advocacy group seeking justice for women kept at Magdalene laundries will today take their campaign to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.
Earlier this week, Minister for Justice Alan Shatter told the Dáil that his department has prepared a draft submission for the Government on the Magdalene laundries and he intends bringing it to Cabinet in early June at the latest. The HSE has also drawn up a report on the laundries for the minister’s consideration.

“I expect to be in a position to make certain announcements after my colleagues in Government have had an opportunity to consider the matter. I hope matters will be advanced in a positive and helpful way as a consequence of the proposals that will be brought forward,” Mr Shatter said.

Maeve O’Rourke from the Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) group is due to make a verbal submission to the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva today, where she will tell the panel that former residents still alive today, continue to suffer degrading treatment in violation of Article 16 of the UN Convention Against Torture (UNCAT).

JFM estimate that tens of thousands of women were sent to the laundries. Many of them are dead.

Ms O’Rourke will also argue, by refusing to investigate and ensure redress for survivors, the state is disregarding its obligations under UNCAT Articles 12-14.

“They have received no apology from the state, no investigation, no redress, and no compensation for their abuse. They receive no pension for their unpaid labour,” said.

Between 1922 and 1996, 10 Magdalene laundries operated here, run by four Catholic orders of nuns.

JFM is arguing the state had a role to play in the laundries as it knew children were imprisoned there and were supplying child labour. They have also shown state policy required the transfer of ‘repeat’ unmarried mothers from state-funded mother and baby homes to the unregulated laundry institutions. It has also harshly criticised the state for not forcing the religious orders to release their detailed records on Magdalene detainees.

In November 2010, the Irish Human Rights Commission said there is sufficient evidence of state responsibility for unlawful imprisonment, servitude, forced labour and cruel and degrading treatment, and called for a statutory inquiry into human rights violations at the laundries.

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, May 20, 2011

UN Committee Against Torture (UNCAT), NGO Briefing Session
Geneva, Switzerland. 20 May 2011. 12 noon (11 a.m. GMT)

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) Statement

Good afternoon.

Between 1922 and 1996, ten Magdalene Laundries operated in the Republic of Ireland. These institutions were run by four Catholic orders of nuns. The Laundries were commercial. They traded as for-profit industries, handling laundry for state institutions, church institutions, corporate entities, and private individuals.

The Magdalene Laundry workforce was not there of its own volition. The workers—an estimated tens of thousands of women and young girls—were imprisoned in the laundries and forced to work for no pay.
This is not just an historical wrong. It is an ongoing one. The women still alive today continue to suffer degrading treatment in violation of article 16 of the Convention.

They have received no apology from the state, no investigation, no redress, and no compensation for their abuse. They receive no pension for their unpaid labour.
In November 2010, the Irish Human Rights Commission recommended that the government establish a statutory inquiry into human rights violations in the Laundries and that it compensate the women where appropriate. This has not happened.

By refusing to investigate and ensure redress for survivors, as the state is obliged to do under articles 12 – 14 of the Convention, Ireland is perpetuating the suffering of these women.

Last week in parliament, the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Mr. Enda Kenny, T.D., pointed out that the Irish Human Rights Commission did not carry out its own inquiry, as it is entitled to. The government is fully aware, however, of the Commission’s reason for not doing so: the Commission acknowledged that only a statutory inquiry by the state could lead to compensation and an apology for the women. The Commission concluded that there is sufficient evidence of state responsibility for unlawful imprisonment, servitude, forced labour and cruel and degrading treatment, and on that basis made its recommendation.
The Irish government has argued that the Magdalene Laundries were private institutions.
However, the following evidence demonstrates that the state was directly involved in the Laundries’ operation and system of exploitation.

The Irish courts directly referred numerous women to the Magdalene Laundries. There was no statutory basis for doing so and the state never established an oversight mechanism—in violation of its obligations under international and domestic law.

Survivor testimony insists that the Irish police force brought women to the Laundries, and routinely returned women and girls who escaped.
The state held contracts with the Magdalene Laundries, without ever insisting on a fair wages clause, and without regulating the Laundries to prevent slavery, servitude or forced labour—again in violation of its international legal obligations.

Official state documents reveal that the government was aware that children were incarcerated in the Laundries and engaged in child labour. In addition, state policy required the transfer of repeat unmarried mothers from state-funded mother and baby homes to the unregulated laundry institutions.
Because the state can thus be shown to have been involved in the abuse of all the women and girls who suffered in the Magdalene Laundries, we argue that the State is now obliged under the convention to remedy the ongoing degrading treatment of the women, by investigating and ensuring redress. As long as the state fails to respond, its involvement in this abuse continues.

The women who survived incarceration and are still alive continue to suffer degrading treatment.
They receive no pensions for their years of unpaid work in the Laundries. They have received no medical or psychological assistance to help overcome the trauma caused by their abuse, which in many cases includes post-traumatic stress disorder.

They have received no education to compensate for the denial of educational opportunity they suffered.
The state has released no personal records for the women it was complicit in referring to the laundries. Nor has the state taken any steps to ensure that the religious congregations release their detailed records for these women.

No one knows with any certainty how many women suffered in these institutions, who they were, where they came from, how many managed to leave, how many are still living with the nuns today, and how many died behind convent walls and are buried in unmarked or improperly marked graves? Church and state records can help answer some of these questions.

The state’s ongoing refusal to respond to the Magdalene Laundries abuse only adds to the sense of shame and stigma felt by the women, and forces many to remain silent about what they have suffered.
Many of these women are elderly and ageing. This is a situation that is of utmost urgency.

Justice for Magdelenes (JFM) calls on the committee to ask the Irish government to remedy the ongoing violation of the Convention on behalf of ALL of the women and girls who suffered in these abusive institutions.
Submitted on behalf of Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) by:
Maeve O’Rourke, Harvard LL.M., Harvard Law School 2010 Global Human Rights Fellow
Dr. James Smith, Associate Professor, English & Irish Studies, Boston College
Mari Steed, Director, Justice For Magdalenes Co-ordinating Committee
Claire McGettrick, PRO, Justice for Magdalenes Co-ordinating Committee
Angela Murphy and Judy Campbell, Justice For Magdalene Committees
Dr. Katherine O’Donnell, Director of Women’s Studies, School of Social Justice, University College Dublin
Councillor Sally Mulready, Hackney Council, and Chair, Irish Women Survivors Network, London
Dr. Mary McAuliffe, President, Women’s History Association of Ireland, and Women’s Studies, School of Social Justice, University College Dublin
Dr. Sandra McAvoy, Co-ordinator of Women’s Studies, University College Cork
Patricia Burke Brogan, Artist, Author of Eclipsed and Stained Glass at Samhain
Paddy Doyle, author of The God Squad, Moderator of “The God Squad” online forum
Tom Kitt, Retired Member of Parliament (T.D.), Former Minister and Government Chief Whip, former Co-Chair of Oireachtas Ad Hoc Committee/Magdalene Laundries
Michael Kennedy, Former Member of Parliament (T.D.), former Co-Chair of Oireachtas Ad Hoc Committee/Magdalene Laundries

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM) welcomes Taoiseach’s comments on Reparations, but calls for immediate action

Justice for Magdalenes (JFM), the survivor advocacy group, welcomes Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s comments during yesterday’s Dáil Debate on “Church-State Dialogue.” We are pleased to learn that the government is considering our proposed “Restorative Justice and Reparations” scheme. We learned on March 23rd that the Minister for Justice is considering a draft submission to the government prepared by the Department of Justice and the Office of the Attorney General. We look forward to the outcome of these deliberations.

But, we also urge the government to act without further delay and thereby bring some measure of restorative justice to a population of ageing and elderly survivors of institutional abuse.

JFM is concerned by the tenor of Mr. Kenny’s comments with regard to state complicity, and we point out that his remarks limiting complicity to the role of the courts in placing women “on remand” and “on probation” at these institutions echo, regrettably, statements by former Ministers Batt O’Keeffe and Dermot Ahern, and former Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

The Irish Human Rights Commission’s Assessment of human rights violations in the laundries establishes the state’s complicity in the abuse of all women and girls at these institutions, beyond those referred through the involvement of the Departments of Justice, Education, and Health or referred there by the courts. The IHRC recommended that the government establish a statutory inquiry to investigate human rights violations in the laundries. Six months later, survivors are still waiting for their political leaders to respond to that recommendation.

As the IHRC report makes clear, the state failed to regulate or inspect these institutions and thus failed to prevent “arbitrary detention,” “forced and compulsory labour,” and “servitude” for all of the women therein. It failed to act on the knowledge that there were children exploited in the laundries. It failed to put a stop to the transfer of women from state licensed Mother and Baby Homes to the unregulated laundries. It failed to insist on the insertion of a “fair wage” clause in Department of Defense contracts with the laundries. It failed to forbid members of the Garda Síochána from bringing women to the laundries and/or returning women who escaped despite there never being a statutory basis for their doing so. And, it failed to enforce the statutory obligation for employers to withhold and make contributions to the contributory pension scheme for all employees.

JFM has made a submission to the UN Committee against Torture in relation to Ireland being examined later this month, on May 23rd and 24th. Authored by Maeve O’Rourke (UCD B.C.L., Harvard LL.M., and Harvard Law School 2010 Global Human Rights Fellow), our submission draws attention to Ireland’s continuing violations of its legal duties under the Convention Against Torture promptly and impartially to investigate allegations of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and to ensure redress for the victims of such treatment. Maeve O’Rourke will present JFM’s case as part of the NGO briefing session with the Committee on Friday, May 20th.