Life In a Magdalene Laundry: Haunting Images Show Children Raised In Cruel Orphanages скачать в хорошем качестве

Life In a Magdalene Laundry: Haunting Images Show Children Raised In Cruel Orphanages

Life in a Magdalene laundry: Haunting images show children raised in cruel orphanages around the world 'as punishment for their mothers' sins' Eerie photos from Magdalene Laundries around the world show children eating dinner as nuns watch over them and young women working on heavy equipment. The images give an insight into life inside the laundries, which were places for women branded 'undesirable' by the church and orphaned children, where untold horrors are said to have taken place. The establishments were set-up to house 'fallen women', a term that was used to imply female sexual promiscuity, when in reality they were women who had children out of wedlock. These institutions, also known as Magdalene asylums, have sparked great controversy, only this month a mass septic tank containing the skeletons of 800 babies was found in County Galway, Ireland. The dead babies are thought to have been secretly buried beside a home for single mothers and their children over a period of 36 years, ending in the 1960s. In another case, it is suspected that 796 children were interred on unconsecrated ground without headstones or coffins next to the home run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam between 1925 and 1961. Reports show that they suffered malnutrition and neglect, which caused the deaths of many, while others died of measles, convulsions, TB, gastroenteritis and pneumonia. The babies were usually buried in a plain shroud without a coffin in a plot that had housed a water tank attached to the workhouse that preceded the mother and child home. Many former occupants of homes have spoken out of the abuse they suffered, including Irish woman Kathleen Legg whose nightmare of being in the 'care' of nuns still haunts her. Speaking in 2015 she said: 'The memories are still there. There are some things you can't block out. Until the day I die, it will be with me.' Named after the Bible's redeemed prostitute, Mary Magdalene, the workhouses were used to reform 'fallen women'. But they soon expanded to take in girls who were considered 'promiscuous', unmarried mothers, the criminal, mentally unwell and girls who were seen as a burden on their families. Kathleen recalled some of the work she was forced to do: 'There were great big heavy rollers. The sheets would be red hot. It would be the work of an adult man. I was up at six in the morning and every time the bell rang you went where you were told to go. 'I didn't know how old I was. There were no mirrors and birthdays were never celebrated.' Rather than getting an education, once she entered the convent Kathleen was stripped naked and given a uniform, she wouldn't see another classroom for four years. She said: 'For the next four years I would scrub, polish and clean every inch of that building, working long hours in the laundry. I had my name changed and I was known as number 27. 'All the time I was there I had little to very basic food. In fact it was dismal and how we survived I'll never know. I was constantly hungry and on the verge of starving. 'The nuns treated me and indeed others in there as slaves.' Other survivors share the same stories of having their name changed on arrival and of constantly washing laundry in cold water, of using heavy irons for hours, of being forbidden to form close friendships and never feeling free to leave. Worked to the bone, starved, beaten and abused, women reported frequent injuries caused by handling the huge mangles, a precursor to the spin dryer Others have spoken about trying to escape but being unable to scale the high walls, often topped with glass.