Magdalene laundry

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Magdalene asylums, also known as Magdalene laundries (named after the Biblical figure Mary Magdalene), were initially Protestant but later mostly Roman Catholic institutions that operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries, ostensibly to house "fallen women". The term referred to female sexual promiscuity or prostitution, young women (teens and children) who became pregnant outside of marriage, young girls and teenagers who did not have familial support, or young women (teens and children) who were deemed "difficult to handle" or "bad eggs". Some were girl children of prostitutes. They were required to work without pay apart from meagre food provisions, while the institutions operated large commercial laundries, serving customers outside their bases. Many of these "laundries" were effectively operated as penitentiary workhouses in which women did laundry, hence the name. The strict regimes in the institutions were often more severe than those found in prisons. The nuns were brutal...

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