IRELAND
The Telegraph (United Kingdom)
By Rachel Cooper
04 Feb 2013
They have been described as ‘Ireland’s disappeared’.
Thousands of women are thought to have passed through the gates of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, some of them never to emerge again and others to leave with deep emotional scars.
The women – some of whom had fallen pregnant outside marriage, or were the daughters of unmarried women – worked for years in church-run laundries, at times allegedly enduring both mental and physical abuse.
Campaigners have long been calling for justice for the Magdalene women and this week, it could finally come.
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