CALALI

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.