LONDON – About 9,000 children have been killed in unmarried mothers’ homes in Ireland, according to a government report published on Tuesday. This equates to 15 per cent of all children born or living in the research institutions for more than almost 80 years.
The 3,000-page report also describes the emotional abuse that women underwent in so-called mother-and-baby homes, especially when they gave birth.
“It seems that little kindness was shown to them, and this was especially the case when they gave birth,” he said.
The mother-and-baby homes, many of which are run by nuns and members of the Catholic Church, operated for most of the 20th century. The last house was closed in 1998. They received state funding and also acted as adoption agencies.
The report found that the responsibility for the harsh treatment of women who gave birth outside of marriage rested primarily with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families. However, it added that the treatment was supported, contributed and approved by the institutions of the state and the churches.
“We did it to ourselves, we treated women extremely badly,” Irish Taoiseach, or Prime Minister, told reporters on Tuesday afternoon after the report was released. “The whole society was complicit.”
Martin added that the report reveals ‘significant failures’ and should be a catalyst for social change.
The commission of inquiry into mother and baby homes also looked into allegations that some children were used in the homes in vaccine trials, without parental consent for their participation.
The report identified seven such vaccination trials, involving a number of children, which took place in the mother-and-baby homes between 1934 and 1973.
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A former resident of one of the houses spoke to NBC News and said she was used as a ‘guinea pig’ for vaccines in a house in Cork, before being adopted in 1961 by a family in Philadelphia.
According to the report, it is clear that the relevant regulatory and ethical standards at the time were not met, as the mothers of the children or their guardians did not get permission and the necessary licenses were not available.
All the houses that were investigated are now closed.
The institutions took in women who became pregnant outside of marriage, taboo in the conservative country, and are seen as an attempt to preserve the country’s pious Catholic image. The houses are now an adverb for a dark chapter in the country’s history, say Irish politicians and survivors.
An amateur local historian Catherine Corless first highlighted the issue of domestic abuse.
She discovered an unmarked mass grave church in Tuam, in the western county of Galway, which led to an investigation that revealed the remains of at least 700 children, who were buried between 1925 and 1961.
Prior to the release of the report, the Department of Children of Ireland told NBC News that it would be an important point for the thousands of former residents and their families. ‘
Prior to publication, however, the details of the report were leaked to the media, causing anger among the victims – including the surviving mother-and-baby home Philomena Lee, whose story in a 2013 film starring Dame Judi Dench appears in the lead role.
Ireland has traditionally been a Catholic stronghold, but decades of abuse scandals have damaged the church’s reputation and weakened its influence.
Pope Francis begged forgiveness for the mother-and-baby home scandal during his first papal visit to the country in nearly four decades in 2018.
The Clann project, an initiative of survival groups working to establish the truth of what happened in the homes, said before the report was released that the government should acknowledge “the shame and stigma that unmarried mothers and their children have been imposed through state policies and practices. “
It also called on the Government of Ireland to urge the Catholic Church to acknowledge responsibility and to take part in the process of compensating victims.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Helena Skinner contributed.