Imagine being raped by a relative, then telling your family to get help but instead of getting sympathy or help, you get sent away to a convent, imprisoned like a criminal because you were ‘branded’ a wayward woman.

Imagine being unmarried and having a baby, your family shuns you, your church condemns you, you’re baby is taken away even though you want to keep him/her. Then the next day you are wisked away to a convent, imprisoned like a criminal for your sins and are branded a wayward woman.

Imagine you are attractive, boys flirt with you and you flirt back but someone sees this and brands you a wayward woman and before you know it you are taken away to a convent, imprisoned like a criminal for your sins and are branded a wayward woman.

Do those scenarios seem unreal? Those things would never happen in our lifetime. But it did happen, it happened in the 20th century — it went on for 150 years — and the last ‘asylum’ closed only 10 years ago on September 25, 1996!

The movie, Magdalen Sisters was on the International Film Channel — I didn’t know what to expect when I first started watching it and didn’t realize until it was over that it was based on a true story.

It’s especially important to understand the past so we don’t take our freedoms for granted. The freedoms we enjoy today should not ever be taken for granted! It should also never be forgotten that “millions of women throughout the world live in conditions of abject deprivation of, and attacks against, their fundamental human rights for no other reason than that they are women.” (Human Rights Watch: Women’s Human Rights) and are often committed in the name of some religion.

Example, today women are raped and in Russia the gov’t refuses to investigate. In Pakistan if a woman reports a rape then they are often riduculed, not believed and are arrested. Human trafficking — women are sold as sex slaves — this is still happening today! There are too many other abuses to list here — lets wake up, this has to stop, there is a broader picture of basic human rights for all human beings including women!

The movie review from TVGuide.com is:

Condemned by the Vatican and the U.S. Catholic League for being anti-Catholic, Scottish actor-turned-director Peter Mullan’s devastating drama is a shocking expose of little-known subject: The Magdalene Asylums of Ireland and Scotland, where “dishonored” women were remanded to the dubious care of the notoriously harsh Sisters of Mercy sect. Estimates suggest that some 30,000 Irish and Scottish Catholic girls unfortunate enough to have been unwed mothers, rape victims or simply perceived as promiscuous spent years toiling as unpaid slaves in the Asylums’ laundries while their souls were supposedly undergoing rehabilitation. Never convicted of any crime, many of these women spent much of their lives as virtual prisoners under the harsh supervision of sadistic priests and nuns, often subjected to physical and sexual abuse and forbidden contact with the outside world. The rationale was that, like Mary Magdalene, the women might find salvation through deprivation and hardship; the laundries, meanwhile, raked in the profits. Mullan, who made his directorial debut in 1999 with the excellent ORPHANS, turns an outraged yet compassionate eye toward this dreadful history by following the fate of three fictionalized young women who, in 1964, are sent to live and work at a Magdalene Asylum in County Dublin as punishment for their transgressions. Margaret (Anne-Marie Duff) is abandoned to the sisters by her parents after she’s raped by her cousin at a family wedding. Branded a temptress, plump and pretty Bernadette (Nora-Jane Doone) is banished from St. Attracta’s orphanage because she’s deemed a little too popular with the local boys. And Rose (Dorothy Duffy) is sent away shortly after handing her illegitimate newborn over to a priest for adoption. Once locked within the asylum’s drab walls, the girls are stripped of their possessions (Rose must even relinquish her name; she’s called Patricia from now on) and put to work washing and scrubbing in the laundries, their only respite meager meals and hours of prayer. Bernadette begins to change after a failed escape attempt brings harsh punishment by the draconian Sister Bridget (a frighteningly good Geraldine McEwan), and soon becomes as cruel as her captors. And this, Mullen asserts, is the ultimate tragedy of the Magdalene Asylums, the last of which wasn’t closed until 1996: generations of healthy spirits were twisted and deformed by the good Sisters of Mercy, all in the name of salvation. –Ken Fox

What was amazing to me was after watching this was learning the movie was based on true stories. Please take some time to watch this movie so you’ll have a better understanding of what we’ve done in the name of religion.

Other links for information

http://www.answers.com/topic/magdalen-asylum
The Magdalene Sisters
Living the Legacy 1848 - 1998: The Women’s Rights Movement
Women’s Rights - Global Issues
U.S. Women’s Rights Timeline
Women’s Human Rights: Amnesty International

Television Documentary About the Magadeline Asylums: Sex in a Cold Climate

Women’s Rights and Status in Turkey
A Woman Blogging from Saudi Arabia