About 56,000 people – from girls to 12 to women in their 40s – were sent to the 18 research institutes, where about 57,000 children were born, according to the report.
One in seven of the children (15%) did not survive long enough to leave the homes, but the state did not sound the alarm about the high death rates, although it was’ known to local and national authorities’ and ‘in official publications, ”the report states.
Before 1960, mother and baby homes’ did not save the lives of ‘illegitimate’ children; it seems to have significantly reduced their chances of survival.
The report states that infant mortality rates are the most “disturbing feature of these institutions.”
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, speaking on Tuesday, said the report “opens a window to a deep-rooted culture of misogyny in Ireland over several decades”, and that the report “reveals significant failures of the state and society”.
The report, which covers more than 2,800 pages, was released a few days after its most important findings were leaked to a national newspaper – exacerbating the pain and anxiety of the survivors who waited years for the final report and to whom a promise given is first view of it by the Minister of Children.
Susan Lohan, co-founder of the Adoption Rights Alliance and a member of a dedicated group of survivors appointed to advise the government, told CNN on Tuesday that leaked excerpts from the report, seen Sunday, show that the Irish government possible to ‘trivialize’ the human rights violations that have taken place on a ‘massive scale’ within these houses.
During her time at the Sean Ross Abbey mother and baby home, Lee said she was ‘exempt’ from her freedom, independence and autonomy and ‘subject to the tyranny of the nuns’, who told mothers daily that they should make reconciliation. for their sins by ‘working for our hooves and handing over our children to the nuns for forced adoption’.
Lee, whose story was told in an Oscar-nominated film starring Judi Dench, added that she was ‘teased’ by the nuns during a difficult delivery, and according to her, the ‘pain’ was a punishment for me debauchery ‘.
The commission’s final report stated that this practice was not uncommon.
For many survivors and advocacy groups, there are concerns that the report may not confirm their experience.
Lohan told national broadcaster RTE that the institutions are a “form of social engineering” and that the “state and church are working together to ensure that women – unmarried mothers and girls who are seen as a threat to the moral tone of the country “is” locked up behind these very high walls to ensure that it would not affect or offend public morality. “
The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Affairs, Roderic O’Gorman, said on Tuesday: ‘The report makes it clear that Ireland has had a stifling, oppressive and cruel female culture for decades, with a pervasive stigma of unmarried mothers and their children robbed those individuals of their agency and sometimes their future. ‘
Survivors are expected to receive an official apology from the state, Martin, the Irish prime minister, on Wednesday.
But for many, that excuse is not enough.
Lohan told CNN that she did not agree with the planned state apology, saying no apology should be issued until survivors had a chance to read and digest the commission’s findings, which could take many weeks.
She also suggested that an apology should be the first of a series of several, pointing out that the commission’s investigation covered only 18 institutions, while around 180 sites were part of an Irish system that included child neglect, premature death , forced adoptions, forced disappearances made possible. forced labor, deprivation of identities, falsification of state documents and falsification of mothers’ consent.
The report does not look fully address the allegations of forced or illegal adoptions, saying only that “many allegations have been made that large sums of money have been given to the institutions and agencies in Ireland that have arranged foreign adoptions. Such allegations are impossible to prove and impossible to to refute. “
Tens of thousands went through other state-run hospitals and private institutions and ‘suffered the same fate’, she said.
As Lohan had a brief look at the report’s summary on Wednesday, Lohan said survivors were left behind by the apparent lack of attention to key issues, and that some survivors now believe their testimony is not believed because the Commission rejected certain allegations. with reference to lack of evidence.
Some advocacy groups have said that the question of why the houses were built in the first place seems to have been underlined, underscoring the trauma that mothers and their children endure.
While the report documented the evidence of women setting out torture and beatings, it was said that ‘there is no doubt that women in maternal and baby homes have been subjected to emotional abuse, but there is very little evidence of physical abuse. and no evidence of sexual abuse. “
The report also does not appear to address the testimony of some survivors who said senior members of the Catholic Church forced them to enter the homes in addition to their family members.
Martin told reporters on Wednesday that “I think in principle that the religious orders in question should make a contribution” to a proposed correction scheme.
‘Destroyed’ plates
According to the commission, 973 children were killed at or near the mother and baby home of Tuam, which revealed that some of their remains had been found in a sewage tank.
Only 50 reports of funerals in Tuam were found; others ‘may have been lost or destroyed over the years’, according to a March 2019 interim report.
A total of 900 babies born or hospitalized in a hospital near County Cork’s home in Bessborough died in infancy or early childhood.
The commission also found that the bodies of more than 950 children who died in some of the homes were sent to university medical schools for ‘anatomical studies’ between 1920 and 1977.
Restricted access
Survivors have long hoped that the commission would reveal more about the allegations of arbitrary detention, cruelty and neglect, forced adoption and vaccination trials that took place inside the homes, and called offenders accountable.
And most importantly, they also hoped it would help them access their personal records, including information about missing family members and babies buried in unmarked graves.
Critics of the law have successfully argued that objecting to the commission’s records is illegal under the General Data Protection Regulation (AVG), an EU guideline that gives individuals the right to access their data.
Survival rights groups are now warning that the government – and state agencies, including the children’s and family agency, Tusla – are still restricting access to survivors to their own records.
In a statement to CNN, Tusla reiterated the issue of access to government, saying that “the absence of legislation to deal with the provision of information will continue to be a source of great concern to people, and the resolution of this issue is out of reach of Tusla. ‘
“We acknowledge the hurt and trauma experienced by those affected by the report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes, who understandably searches their identity,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, the agency continues to deny survivors – especially adopted people – regular access to their own personal information, their birth certificates, their identities and even their ethnic groups, Lohan said.
“This abuse did not end in 1998 when the last terrible places were closed.”