1967, Mardi Gras. Françoise is a seventeen-year-old boarder in an all-girls Catholic high school. Convinced that she has only one night left before her death, she sneaks out with her friend Delphine to attend a costume party and live the night as if it was her last.
I believe that remembering dark times in history is important so we recognize when similar situations are proposed. So, today I will share one of these dark histories.
⚠️Do note that it is a story with abuse, imprisonment, and more. I feel like this post will be particularly triggering to residential school survivors.
I will try to keep this post brief and fairly censored, while providing videos with more information.
Magdalene Laundries (also called Magdalene Asylums and Magdalene Institutions) were institutions primarily run by the Roman Catholic Church. These institutions could be found in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Canada, the USA, and Australia. The ones in Ireland are regarded as the most notorious.
The people confined to these institutions were “fallen women,” which meant any women who were outside of what society deemed appropriate.
According to survivors, you might find yourself in a laundry if you…
Are suspected of being a sex worker
Got pregnant outside of marriage
Got pregnant from an affair
Are an orphan
Ran away from your abusive husband
Have a mother deemed unsuitable to raise you
Have a mental illness
Are deemed too flirtatious
Are the victim of assault
Have an abusive father
Have struggling parents who want one less mouth to feed
Have a mother who remarried and her new husband does not want you
And some were sent with no known reason at all
“A "voluntary" committal was the label given to any woman surrendered by family, a doctor, her employer, the police, or a social worker.” Owlcation
The women were a source of free labour, primarily through a laundry business(hence the name). Little care was given to these women and children, and survivors report many levels of abuse.
"Ireland's first mother and baby home, at Bessborough, in Cork, had an even worse infant mortality rate of around 82 percent: In the year ending March 31, 1944, 124 children were born or admitted there, and 102 died." NBC News
Only some deaths were reported, and the number of remains found in mass graves in Ireland is around 1000.
Babies that survived would be given to new families.
Some women would be stuck in the institutions for their entire lives. An estimated 30,000 women were victims of these institutions in Ireland alone.
For a long time, the rumours were that the laundries were “only” for prostitutes. Now the rumours say that only those in Ireland were harmful. However, locations elsewhere in the world, such as Australia, Canada, and the USA, also have stories of abuse in the forced-labour institutions.
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