IRELAND
The New York Times
By DOUGLAS DALBY
Published: February 5, 2013
DUBLIN — Ireland is preparing to publish an extensive report on Tuesday on the Magdalene Institutions, workhouses operated by Catholic religious orders where an estimated 30,000 girls and young women were detained between 1922 and 1996.
A dwindling group of survivors of the laundries are seeking a state apology for their treatment and payment for years of unpaid labor and pension payments. The “Maggies,” as the women and girls were called, were excluded from a previous compensation scheme for those who suffered in state-run institutions on the basis that the laundries were never inspected or regulated.
In an opinion piece in The Irish Times this morning, Jim Smith, an associate professor at Boston College and a committee member of the Justice for Magdalenes campaign group, said: “These women were abused in the past, and have been abandoned in the present.”
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