NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
30 MAY 2013
As recently as the 1980s, new-born babies were being forcibly taken from their mothers and given up for adoption by nuns in Northern Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. That’s the allegation I have now heard from a number of women, who were forced into the laundries in Belfast and Newry after they became pregnant.
If true, it is just the most heartbreaking of a whole range of human rights violations alleged by the forgotten women of Northern Ireland’s Magdalene laundries.
The publicity surrounding the publication of Martin McAleese’s report into Magdalene Laundries in the Republic has prompted a number of women who were in similar institutions in Northern Ireland to approach Amnesty International.
Like their counterparts in the Republic, they appear to have suffered a range of serious human rights abuses including inhuman and degrading treatment, arbitrary deprivation of liberty and forced labour.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.