From Raw Story: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/06/report-catholic-laundries-enslaved-women-and-girls-in-ireland-as-recently-as-1996/
By Henry McDonald, The Guardian
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Taoiseach Enda Kenny fails to formally apologise for involvement over female enslavement causing more outrage
After more than seven decades of exploitation and a 10-year struggle for justice, Ireland on Tuesday admitted its role in the enslavement of thousands of women and girls in the notorious Magdalene Laundry system, but stopped short of issuing a formal apology from the government.
A long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese said there was “significant state involvement” in how the laundries were run – a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns.
But the Irish Premier Enda Kenny’s failure to give the women and their supporters a full, formal, public apology in the Dail on Tuesday afternoon has infuriated the victims and their supporters, who said such an approach risked undermining Ireland’s attempt to right a historic wrong. Instead Kenny stated his “regret” about the stigma hanging over the women.
“The stigma that the branding together of all the residents, all 10,000, in the Magdalene Laundries, needs to be removed, and should have been removed long before this,” Kenny said. “And I really am sorry that that never happened, and I regret that it never happened.”
Continue reading at : http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/06/report-catholic-laundries-enslaved-women-and-girls-in-ireland-as-recently-as-1996/
See also The Guardian UK: Magdalene laundries survivors threaten hunger strike
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