Justice for Magdalenes Ireland: Submission to the United Nations Committee against Torture

Abstract

Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries were residential, commercial and for-profit laundries operated by four Irish orders of nunsi where between the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922ii and 1996, when the last institution closed, a number of girls and women, estimated in the tens of thousands,iii were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labour and subjected to severe psychological and physical maltreatment.