Latest news with #MagdaleneLaundries
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Straits Times
Survivors of Spain's Franco-era 'fallen women' centres seek apology, recognition
Headquarters of the Adorers nuns, still in operation, where numerous women were imprisoned against their will during Franco's regime and the transition to democracy by the 'Patronato de la Mujer', in Valencia, Spain, April 25, 2025. REUTERS/Eva Manez The picture shows photos, from Provincial Historical Archive in Sevilla, from the 1940's to 1970's of women in centers belonging to the Women's Protection Board, in Madrid, Spain, April 23, 2025. REUTERS/Ana Beltran MADRID/VALENCIA - Consuelo Garcia del Cid was 16 when the family doctor came into her bedroom in Barcelona, Spain with her mother in 1974, grabbed her left arm and pushed a needle into a vein. She blacked out then woke up in a strange room a day's drive away in Madrid - one of thousands of girls and young women who were accused of a range of perceived moral failings and taken to state-run Catholic rehabilitation institutions during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. On Monday, a Catholic body that includes most of the communities of nuns that helped operate some of the centres, will hold a ceremony to formally ask the women for forgiveness, the first event of its kind in Spain, announced in April but delayed by the death of Pope Francis. A start, but not enough, say campaigners who want a national apology for what they went through in the network of Patronato de Proteccion a la Mujer (Board for the Protection of Women) institutes - along the lines of Ireland's 2013 apology for the abuses in its Magdalene Laundries. "It's just the tip of the iceberg," said Pilar Dasi, 73, who spent several months at a centre in Valencia in 1971. "The event is good for the Church as it cleans its own image, but the government must also act." She said she was held after her cousin, a police officer, reported her for keeping "bad company", a reference to left-wing boyfriends. The operation was set up in 1941 by Franco's Justice Ministry, overseen by the board chaired by his wife Carmen Polo. It was active until 1985, 10 years after Franco's death. Spain's Democratic Memory Ministry - a body set up to tackle the legacy of Spain's civil war and Franco's regime - told Reuters it applauded the decision by the Spanish Confederation of Religious Entities (CONFER) to ask for forgiveness. The ministry said in a statement it hoped to hold its own ceremony later this year that would recognise the women as victims of the Franco regime. "They will be considered victims and will be given a declaration of recognition and reparation," it said, without going into further detail on the timing or substance of any event. Garcia del Cid said her family had called in the doctor in 1974 because they were worried about what they saw as her rebelliousness after she attended a number of demonstrations against the dictatorship. The centre where she went was "a sinister place, with extreme religious indoctrination, and life was reduced to working, scrubbing and praying," said the now 66-year-old who has written five books on the subject. "If you are told all day long that you are crazy, a slut, a lost cause, on the wrong path, there comes a point when you might start to believe it if you don't have a strong inner core." She said she was held until 1976. 'HORROR OF HORRORS' The institutes took girls and women aged up to 25, including single mothers, children of prisoners, and those reported by priests, neighbours or their families for deviating from strict Catholic moral standards. The centres sought to rehabilitate them, survivors say, through work and instruction. "A bad woman could be a girl who smoked, a girl who talked back like me, a girl who skipped school, wore miniskirts, kissed her boyfriend in the back row of the cinema," said 67-year-old Mariaje Lopez, who was placed in a centre from 1965 to 1970. "Girls who got pregnant were also considered bad girls, and often no one asked who the father was." One of the most feared centres was Penagrande maternity centre on the outskirts of Madrid, where many young women were pressured to give up their babies for adoption, campaign group Banished Daughters of Eve says. "Penagrande was the horror of horrors. It was scary to have a child there. Any child who went up to the infirmary never came back. They were given to other families, or sold, or whatever. We were told they died," said Paca Blanco, 76, who was in and out of several board centres between 1967 and 1969. CONFER - representing 403 Catholic congregations - announced in April it would hold a forgiveness ceremony, saying it took the step after listening to the experiences of survivors and conducting its own research. "It helps (the survivors) to live that moment of healing and liberation and... us as congregations also to improve our way of dealing with these realities," CONFER chairman Jesus Diaz Sariego told Reuters. The Spanish Conference of Bishops referred questions to CONFER, saying the Confederation was an independent body. The Vatican did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Garcia del Cid said she would be at the CONFER event that she saw as a step towards her and the thousands of others being recognised as victims of Franco's regime. But more was needed. "I will be buried with this," she told Reuters. "It was the greatest atrocity Spain has committed against women." REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Metro
15-05-2025
- Metro
Being imprisoned in a cruel Magdalene laundry left me with 'no soul'
It is hard to imagine how Maureen Sullivan rebuilt her life after enduring devastating trauma as a child. Following the death of her father, she was raped repeatedly by her stepdad, and when she spoke out about what happened after four years of abuse, she was incarcerated. Maureen, now 73, was one of the youngest girls to enter the Magdalene Laundries – institutions run primarily by Catholic religious orders where so-called 'fallen women' were sent. Inmates, often young and vulnerable, were forced to work in harsh conditions, usually doing laundry for local businesses, the church, or the state. Maureen was sent to the Magdalene Laundry at St Mary's Convent, New Ross, County Wexford, where she was forced to work long hours scrubbing floors and washing clothes, and denied an education. She was ostensibly put there for her own safety, but the experience proved to be the final nail in the coffin of her childhood, which had already been devastated. Speaking from her home in Carlow, Ireland, about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather Marty, she tells Metro: 'I was so full of fear, it felt like my body was burning. It's a very horrible way to feel. And I couldn't understand what was happening to me, couldn't put a name to it. He was pure evil.' He warned Maureen that if she told anyone what was happening, nobody would believe her. 'It's what paedophiles do. They will groom a child and call them a liar. If you say that you are hurting, or something has happened, they will say: 'Sure, don't mind her. She's a liar.'' So the little girl kept it inside, all the while enduring pains in her hips and abdomen and cramping so bad she would vomit. It went on for years until one day, at the age of 12, a teacher approached Maureen and took her into her office for a private chat. 'She said: 'Maureen, you really look pale and unwell, and I'm concerned about you. I know something is wrong.' She had a lovely box of Black Magic chocolates and gave me a few. I'd never seen lovely sweets like them before, and I started talking,' Maureen remembers. The Priest was called and a letter given to her mother. It was decided that she was to go immediately to live at the convent at New Ross. Relieved to have escaped Marty, she thought she was going to get an education and come home at weekends, but when she arrived, Maureen realised life was to be very different. As a survivor of sexual abuse, she was kept away from other children. 'Because I could 'corrupt' their little minds', she remembers. 'How cruel is that? I wasn't able to talk to them or play with them. I was stripped of everything a child should have and was left with nothing.' Instead, there was hard labour and long days. Maureen was woken at 6am and began the day by washing, polishing and shining corridors, windows and doors. She would then attend mass, have breakfast and go on to spend the day working in the Laundry. At 5pm she would have tea and then attend 'recreation'. 'Recreation was making rosary beads and sweaters for Lourdes, Rome and holy places across the world,' she remembers. 'There was no such thing as recreation. We would do that until bed at 8 o'clock. We'd be exhausted. They didn't need to worry about us talking or whispering to one another, we didn't have the energy. 'You'd then go to sleep and have nightmares about whether you'd got it right. It was horrible; no play time, no sitting and having a chat… It just didn't happen,' she adds. Maureen would work five days a week, and the weekends would be spent cleaning the church or the nuns' apartments. Her hands were left sore and burnt from the soul-destroying work and she was given a new name; Frances. 'You were left with no soul. You had nothing. It was very cruel,' she remembers. 'It felt as bad as the original abuse I'd suffered. I was thinking – 'why did I tell my teacher? Why did I open my mouth?' Isn't that sad?' Maureen's presence in the laundry was kept secret from the outside world; if inspectors or other visitors arrived, she was put in a tunnel to hide. Once, aged 14, she was locked in for hours and forgotten about. She became hysterical and it took her days to get over the traumatic incident. After two years, the young girl was transferred to another laundry in Athy, County Kildare and then to a school for blind people in Dublin. 'My education was taken from me, my hair was cut, I was used as a child slave. I was trafficked from laundry to laundry and my name was changed,' she remembers starkly. 'It really damaged me for years. I should have been enjoying life in my early years, but I didn't. It was worse than prison, because we had no rights. 'After that, I didn't cope very well. I never thought anything of myself, it destroyed all the enjoyment I should have had. I never celebrated a birthday or anything about my life. I couldn't warm to or trust anybody. It was horrendous what was done to me.' Maureen left as soon as she could, aged 16, and took the boat to London with her brother Patrick where the pair decided to build a new life. They slept in Argyll Square, Kings Cross, with no sleeping bag, pillow or money to their name. When, after two months they found the Irish Centre in Camden Town, they were given a room. Without an education, Maureen was limited to jobs in laundries and restaurants. 'I was getting more and more depressed and getting flashbacks. Memories of my stepfather, of what he did. Memories of the laundry and the way I was treated. Of sleeping in a park and how anything could have happened to me,' she explains. She married soon after she arrived in London andhad two children, but Maureen admits she was miserable. Just 19 when she had her daughter, she was so full of 'fear and confusion' she struggled to parent. Her son came 15 years later. By the time she was 34, Maureen made an attempt on her life and ended up in hospital, where, for the first time, she started receiving therapy. She has had counselling every week ever since and has slowly managed to rebuild her life. Her mother, who had ten children by Marty, left him shortly after her daughter was incarcerated, but when Maureen was in her thirties she learned her stepfather was terminally ill and he'd asked for her to come and see him. 'I went into the hospital room in private, because I didn't want to hurt his other children. It wasn't their fault,' remembers Maureen. 'I told him I couldn't forgive him for what he did. He replied: 'Oh, you were a silly little girl. I was only getting you ready for the outside world.' Imagine saying that? It's sick. I told him: 'I hope you rot in hell' and left the room. 'I felt nothing when he died.' In 1995, Maureen moved back to Carlow to be with her mother and determined to help others like her, she started working as an advocate for laundry survivors. More Trending She also joined Justice for Magdalenes, the group that helped bring about an apology from the Irish State, and has been involved in honouring the names of women of the laundries who were buried in unmarked graves. Maureen helped unveil the the Journey Stone at the Little Museum of Dublin in 2022, to honour 'the great courage, integrity and dignity of the women' who had been in the laundries. The following year she published The Girl in the Tunnel about her experiences, in the hope that it would help other survivors of abuse. Despite her initial parenting struggles, she and her children have grown very close. However, even now, people are trying to force Maureen into silence, she says. 'I was invited onto Oprah and somebody emailed to try and stop me going on. People say I make stuff up, that I'm a liar. Really nasty stuff. The latest rumour is that I am a bigamist,' she adds.'I don't know why they do it. I think they begrudge me speaking out, but I don't care. I will never stop talking about what happened to me and other survivors.' 'The Good Shepherd Sisters remain focused on providing whatever support they can to women and children who were in their care and continue to offer help and pastoral support wherever possible. We support victims and survivors in several ways. The Congregation has made financial contributions to the Towards Healing support service since its inception almost 30 years ago. This means that any victim or survivor who requires support has access to a free, confidential, independent counselling service for as long as they need. Many former residents and their family members remain in contact with and have good relations with individual Sisters. This is encouraged and acknowledged as an essential encounter in the healing process. The Good Shepherd Sisters have co-operated fully with several historical inquiries, including detailed testimony from many of its members and by providing extensive files and documentation. We continue to engage with ongoing investigations. We do not comment publicly on individual cases, but we strongly encourage anyone in need to contact us directly.' MORE: 'My life is a ticking time bomb – I worry about running out of days to make change' MORE: Coming seventh in a triathlon taught me more than becoming European champion MORE: A friend asked a question about disability that stopped me in my tracks
RTÉ News
01-05-2025
- RTÉ News
Two senior Christian Brothers asset holders were child abusers
Two Christian Brothers who were senior leaders over the space of two decades and managed the congregation's assets are now convicted child sexual abusers. Victims' representatives say they are deeply concerned following discoveries by RTÉ Investigates that child abusers inside the religious congregation were at the heart of its leadership, managing its financial and business affairs in recent decades. Br Martin O'Flaherty (73) was jailed for historical child sexual abuse in six successive trials over the last three years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court - the latest, last month, when he was sentenced to five years on 15 counts of indecent assault on seven boys at Kilkenny CBS Primary School between 1976 and 1981. O'Flaherty was a senior member of the Christian Brothers' leadership for Ireland, England and Europe in the 12 years from 2002 to 2014. He was a founding member of the trustee company that manages the congregation's assets and was a trustee of its English properties until December 2019, over a year after he was formally questioned by Gardaí, RTÉ Investigates has discovered. He remains a trustee listed on the deeds of other congregation properties in Ireland, including Christian Brother retained lands at Monkstown CBC, where he was involved in a legal change to the property's deed in 2022, over a year after he was charged with indecent assault. As part of a wide-ranging investigation into Christian Brothers' assets and abusers, RTÉ Investigates has uncovered hundreds of property transactions by trustees who hold assets in trust for the beneficial ownership of the congregation. It has established that the Christian Brothers ran a total portfolio of over 800 properties since 1990. Senior Brothers, acting as trustees, held, sold, or transferred the 800 properties on behalf of the congregation over the past 35 years. The Christian Brothers still own at least 270 properties, while the trustees sold or transferred some 530 other properties over those years. Another senior Brother who was part of the leadership and involved in the trusteeship of congregation assets, has also been convicted for historical child sexual abuse. He cannot be named for legal reasons. He controlled a project that received significant monies from a special Children at Risk fund established under the Department of Education as part of the response to revelations of clerical child sexual abuse in the 1990s. He was also involved in decisions on the Christian Brothers' approach to civil cases taken by child sexual abuse victims in the courts. Last year, the Scoping Inquiry reported the Christian Brothers as the religious order that had the highest number of schools and the largest number of alleged abusers, relying on figures supplied by the congregation itself. So far, the taxpayer has funded the bulk of redress for abuse in residential industrial schools - many of them managed by the Christian Brothers - and for limited redress for survivors of Magdalene Laundries. More recently, the Government has repeated past requests for "contributions" from religious orders towards redress for survivors of Mother and Baby Homes. Dr James Gallen, Associate Professor at the School of Law & Government in Dublin City University, said the bill for redress for historical child sexual abuse in day and boarding schools is expected to be billions. He cited a Central Statistics Office survey estimating that when a Government-promised Commission of Inquiry is held, "there might be as much as 41,000 men and women, affected by sexual abuse in day schools." Lawyers for victims have also criticised the Christian Brothers' continuing use of a legal tactic to block victims in the courts. The leadership invokes a 2017 Supreme Court judgment to deter victims from suing. The judgment treats congregations like the Christian Brothers as 'unincorporated associations', like a club run by a committee. Relying on that judgment, uniquely among religious orders the Christian Brothers does not nominate a leader to act as a representative defendant when the congregation is sued by victims. Philip Treacy, a solicitor with Coleman Legal, said that he considered the Christian Brothers' legal approach as "particularly un-Christian" and that it was now "a matter for Leinster House to address". The Christian Brothers said it "fully respects the rights of all parties in litigation to progress their case in accordance with the law and best legal practice". However, John Boland, one of a group of victims of a then Christian Brother teacher, Seán Drummond, at Creagh Lane CBS national school in the late 1960s, said that they believe the Christian Brothers "holds all the power" in the courts. RTÉ Investigates reveals a letter written by Drummond in February 1970, in which he admitted "sexually interfering" with boys he taught, as well as correspondence between the then Irish leadership and the Superior General in Rome that led to Drummond being freed from his vows. A survivor of Christian Brother abuse and victims' advocate, Damian O'Farrell, who successfully campaigned for the Freedom of Drogheda granted to former Christian Brother leader Br Edmund Garvey in 1997 to be disregarded in 2023, said he believed the Christian Brothers has taken a step backwards since the Ryan Commission report into institutional child sexual abuse. "They haven't moved, I would say they're worse since the time of the Ryan Report and since the time of the industrial school redress scheme", he said. In response to tonight's RTÉ Investigates, the Christian Brothers said it reiterated "...our apology for the physical and sexual abuse that occurred in many former CBS schools" and stated that they "cannot comment on individuals, not least as some remain subject to ongoing legal processes".
