9,000 children died in “brutally misogynistic” homes for single mothers in Ireland | World News

Single mothers in Ireland faced a “brutally misogynistic culture” for decades, a minister said after the publication of a report on the deaths of 9,000 children and babies.

A five-year investigation by a judicial commission of inquiry details how children died in 18 institutions for single mothers and their babies between 1922 and 1998.

The commission’s 3,000-page report confirms that 9,000 babies died, about 15% of all children who were in institutions, and a figure much higher than the national death rate at the time.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin will make an official state apology to those affected on Wednesday at the Dail.

He said the report describes “a dark, difficult and embarrassing chapter in very recent Irish history,” and asked the Church to issue its own apologies.

The Irish government will also provide financial recognition to specific groups identified in the report and promote laws to support the excavation, exhumation and, where possible, the identification of remains at burial sites.

In addition, the government has established a counseling support service for survivors, who were given access for the first time on Tuesday.

Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman said the report, which contains 53 government recommendations, makes clear that single mothers faced a “suffocating, oppressive and brutally misogynistic culture” for decades.

The report has been sent to the Director of the Prosecutor’s Office to consider any criminality that may arise from it.

Homes for mothers and babies were institutions to which pregnant girls were sent, often under pressure from local clergy. There they would give birth and would eventually be separated from their children, who were offered up for adoption, sometimes in the United States.

Irish society in the mid-20th century was deeply entwined with the teachings of the Catholic Church, and out-of-wedlock pregnancies were considered scandalous.

There were about 56,000 single mothers and about 57,000 children in the mother and baby homes investigated by the commission.

The highest number of admissions was in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The commission said: “While mother and baby homes were not a peculiarly Irish phenomenon, the proportion of Irish single mothers who were admitted to mother-baby homes or county homes in the 20th century was probably the highest in the world. world”.

The investigation began after a local historian discovered the existence of a common infant grave on the site of an old house, run by the Bon Secours nuns, in Tuam, Co Galway.

Through careful investigation, Catherine Corless established that 796 children had died in the home and were buried in chambers in an old sewage tank. Local children playing at the site had previously discovered human bones under a concrete slab.

The revelation shocked Ireland and made international news. The Irish government was encouraged to establish the commission of inquiry.

Speaking to Sky News at the Tuam site, where the children’s remains are found under a memorial garden, Ms Corless said that many children died due to attitudes towards single mothers and their babies at the time.

“The Roman Catholic Church created this culture that women would sin if they had a child out of wedlock,” she said.

“That was strongly reinforced in everyone’s mind at that time, people were afraid to say something against the Church or the local priest.

“There was very little respect for illegitimate children at that time, there was a lot of neglect of babies. I think with a little hygiene and a little care, a lot of the babies could have been saved. Screams of sheer neglect.”

In the 1930s and 1940s, more than 40% of children in households died before their first birthday, the commission found.

But he found little evidence that politicians or the public were concerned about children, despite the “appalling level of infant mortality.”

Some of the institutions investigated were owned and operated by local health authorities, including the county houses, Pelletstown, Tuam and Kilrush.

Others were owned and run by religious orders, for example the three houses run by the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary – Bessborough, Sean Ross – where the story Philomena Lee began – and Castlepollard.

Many were in very poor physical condition. Kilrush and Tuam had “appalling physical conditions,” the commission said, and lacked basic sanitary facilities such as running water.

Winnifred Carmel Larkin was born in Tuam’s home in 1949 and remained there for five and a half years before being taken in.

She is still angry about how they treated her mother, whom she has not seen since she was a baby.

Mrs. Larkin said, “Well, it’s our holocaust, right? They had the holocaust in Germany, but the mothers and babies’ houses were our holocaust.”

He has never seen a photograph of his mother or knows where she is buried.

“I was horrified,” she said upon discovering how mothers were treated in Tuam.

“Horrified that any human being can treat babies and mothers like this. Mothers came in here and they were sinful. Giving birth to a baby is the most precious gift a woman can have.”

Some of the women in the households were pregnant as a result of rape; others had mental health problems and some had an intellectual disability, the commission found. The investigated homes revealed reports of physical and emotional abuse.