Jul 13, 2010
Guest Contribution: O’Rourke on Slavery, Forced Labour and the Magdalene Laundries
We are delighted to welcome this guest post from Maeve O’Rourke (left) who is a Harvard Law School Global Human Rights Fellow for 2010-2011 and a graduate of UCD and HLS.
It is now a year since the advocacy group, Justice for Magdalenes, provided the Dail with draft language for a redress scheme for survivors of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Still, the government denies any state liability for the Magdalene Laundries abuse, maintaining that the laundries were private institutions, never regulated or inspected by the State. Flying in the face of the government’s argument is a series of international legal obligations upon the Irish state to prevent and suppress slavery and forced labour by non-state actors, beginning in 1930.
The very fact that the Magdalene laundries were not subject to regulation or inspection, when the State was aware of their nature and function, was a gross violation of the State’s duty to protect its citizens from such fundamental attacks on human freedom and dignity as slavery and forced labour. In the Ryan Report and the broadcast media, survivor accounts of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries tell of abuse that matches up with a definition of slavery given by the UN Secretary General in reference to the League of Nations 1926 Slavery Convention: absolute control over a person, their labour and the product of that labour. The accounts further conform to the definition of forced or compulsory labour under the 1930 International Labour Organisation Forced Labour Convention: all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.
By way of partial illustration: the Ryan Report details a regime of “continuous hard physical work”, which was “generally unpaid”; conditions “like a prison”, with doors locked at all times; a rule of silence; loss of liberty; social isolation and deprivation of identity. Magdalene Laundry survivors speaking on RTE Radio’s Liveline in September 2009 recalled working in the laundry from morning till night, and making Limerick Lace, Irish Linen, Aran sweaters and rosary beads for sale without ever receiving “one brown shilling” for their work.
While the religious orders were the direct perpetrators and beneficiaries of this grave abuse, and should of course take every possible step to remedy their past wrongdoing, the Irish state was complicit. According to a May 1941 Dail debate, the state held Army laundry contracts with institutional laundries. The courts referred women and girls to the laundries, and several official reports and Dail debates produced by Justice for Magdalenes from state archives show a clear awareness of the nature, function and population of the Magdalene Laundries at various times.
In 1930, Ireland ratified the League of Nations 1926 Slavery Convention, which obliged it to “bring about, progressively and as soon as possible, the complete abolition of slavery in all its forms.” Under this Convention, the state agreed that if it did not at the time adequately punish infractions of its laws and regulations against slavery (which it was also obliged to have), it would “adopt the necessary measures in order that severe penalties may be imposed in respect of such infractions”.
In 1931, Ireland ratified the 1930 International Labour Organization Forced Labor Convention, undertaking “to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period.” In accordance with this Convention, the state agreed that it would “not impose or permit the imposition of forced or compulsory labour for the benefit of private individuals, companies or associations.” Ireland further accepted under this Convention that “No concession granted to private individuals, companies or associations shall involve any form of forced or compulsory labour for the production or the collection of products which such private individuals, companies or associations utilise or in which they trade.” It also accepted that “The illegal exaction of forced or compulsory labour shall be punishable as a penal offence, and it shall be an obligation on any Member ratifying this Convention to ensure that the penalties imposed by law are really adequate and are strictly enforced.”
In 1961, Ireland ratified the 1957 UN Supplementary Slavery Convention, under which it was bound to take “all practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment of…any institution or practice whereby a child or young person under the age of 18 years, is delivered by either or both of his natural parents or by his guardian to another person, whether for reward or not, with a view to the exploitation of the child or young person or of his labour”. Under this Convention, Ireland also agreed that the “act of enslaving another person or of inducing another person to give himself or a person dependent upon him into slavery…shall be a criminal offence…and persons convicted thereof shall be liable to punishment.”
The European Convention on Human Rights, ratified by Ireland in 1953, contains an absolute prohibition on slavery and forced labor. In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights held that member states were required to penalise and effectively prosecute any act aimed at maintaining a person in such a situation, given the fact that this prohibition “enshrines one of the fundamental values of democratic societies”.
The question has to be asked: if the above legal obligations did not require the state to suppress the conditions endured by women and girls in the Magdalene Laundries, then what was the meaning of Ireland’s ratification of these Conventions?
An overly deferential attitude towards the Church by the State in 20th century Ireland may explain its failure to protect the women and girls who suffered in their thousands in the Magdalene Laundries. But it did not, and does not, remove the duty to have done so, and to make appropriate apology and reparation now. It is long past time this government acknowledged the place of the Magdalene Laundries in that sorry part of Irish history where church, state and society colluded to oppress and silence the vulnerable and marginalized. Quite simply, the government’s continuing denial of any state liability for the Magdalene Laundries abuse is as unlawful as it is immoral.
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/news.htm
Maeve,
Of course my opinion may be somewhat biased, serving on the Justice for Magdalenes committee as I do, but may I say that you present such a powerful and legally watertight argument here…well done. We thank you for your support and the stupendous amount of research and thought that’s gone into your work. We need more of the energy of smart, young crusaders such as yourself! On behalf of my mother and everyone with JFM, thank you for an excellent piece. We know there’s more to come and look forward to your continued work on this aspect of the atrocities perpetrated in the laundries.