Former inmates of Good Shepherd homes want compensation for forced labour – DutchNews.nl
“In the Netherlands at least 15,000 young girls and women were forced to work in the laundries and sewing rooms of the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd between 1860 and 1973, according to research by the NRC.
Five of the women now want the abuse they suffered to be recognised and the money they were denied to be paid to them.
The sisters of the Good Shepherd had homes all over Europe, Canada and Australia where girls were forced to work, with some of the most notorious abuse taking place in the Magdalene laundries in Ireland.
In the Netherlands, where the order ran homes in Zoeterwoude, Almelo, Velp and Tilburg, girls – prostitutes or unmarried mothers but more often orphans, disabled girls or girls convicted for petty crime – were put into the homes against their will by parents and official child protection organisations until the early 1970s.
Once in the home the chores, presented as ‘work therapy’ turned out to be forced labour in what was in fact a textile factory with clients such as hospitals, hotels, the church and the government.
In 1933 an order for 40,000 army shirts was given to the nuns. In Velp the girls even made the dowry of the late princess Juliana, the paper writes.Apart from hard unpaid labour the inmates of the homes were also subjected to sexual abuse, harsh punishments and a lack of medical care and education.
Source: Former inmates of Good Shepherd homes want compensation for forced labour – DutchNews.nl
Another great week for the religious world. Next comes: Report on Pennsylvania Roman Catholic priest sexual abuse to be most extensive yet!
My Mazamet 
It’s disgusting the influence the church still has, given its atrocious of the past. They shouldn’t be allowed to exist let alone operate public institutions.
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To add insult to injury, in much of Europe they still receive absolute fortunes in government funds. In the billions…
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It appears all the money the church has been stealing will be used to settle abuses it has been condoning. Now only if we would have survivors of the inquisition asking for payment!
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From Spain alone they get 11 billion per year… so they can afford it 😦
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How sad. I was hoping they would get broke and eventually collapse
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I thought you might appreciate this … it seems relevant.
A comment on another thread I am currently involved with.
cumbriasmithy
JUNE 11, 2018 AT 10:07 PM
It’s impossible to quantify the amount of good done by the church for the public. We see the occasional negative effects because they make the news, but the churches’ constant beneficial influences on individual and social wellbeing are largely hidden and can’t be calculated.
As you might expect, I questioned his use of the word ”occasional”
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Hilarious. Put another way why doesn’t he say that the church saves parents and baby-sitters countless hours of child care by using that time to rape little children … !
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I can give you the link and you can tell him if you like but the blog host – a Pastor – moderates.
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Social well-being? How do they figure? Pretty ballsy of them, though maybe that’s too true.
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christian slavery at its best. So, if this god doesn’t approve of slavery, as some Christians claim, then it does nothing at all, and allows this to be done in its name. If it does approve slavery, as it repeatedly does in the bible, then Christianity is nothing more than vile nonsense.
Of course, since it doesn’t exist, it is what humans do when they have religion supporting their personal disgusting values.
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Horrible. Scottish Episcopalians (my lot) did much the same, I am afraid.
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Clare, do you have a similar link by chance? The bloke who hosts the particular blog I referenced above is a Scottish Minster who considers his special brand of faith is unimpeachable.
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Presbyterians don’t like Episcopalians anyway, and “minister” sounds more Presby to me. And it was stories when I was a student rather than something I looked up.
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His name is David Robertson and he is the minister of St Peters Free Church in Dundee Scotland.
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I would not have thought you would get on with the Free Presbyterians.
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Who said anything about ”getting on”? I consider the man to be … well, we don’t get on, let’s put it like that.
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Here’s one for you: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/07/sex-abuse-survivors-catholic-church-scotland
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Another horrific story involving disgusting, sick actions by Catholics. A-holes!
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Women’s inhumanity to women.
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‘Work therapy’…I’m shocked but no longer surprised. Clearly this is one of the ways the Church became so rich and powerful. One thing’s for sure, power really does bring out the very worst in people.
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That’s the tip of the iceberg for the church. In Spain it was normal for them to “appropriate” empty or unregistered properties (registry only become obligatory in the 20th century.)
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You’re joking?!? They were Robber Barons. The small girl taught by nuns is beyond shocked. 😦
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Lest history repeat itself, ad infinitum: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/06/06/does-the-u-s-keep-immigrant-children-in-cages/
We are one fucked up species. I wish your inmates luck. Their lives have been impacted forever.
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Oh, the connection, sorry: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/29/560097406/after-choosing-donald-trump-is-the-evangelical-church-in-crisis
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In addition to the all the above, what kills me is people who are STUPID enough to send money into so called preachers because they need a new and bigger airplane. And people really do send them money.
I wish I could remember who it was, there was a tv host comedian who sent money into one of these Prosperity Gospel preachers to see what would happen. He sent in the money and then he got something like a bookmark for the Bible, instructed to set the bookmark to a certain page and send in more money with the assurance that God was gonna bless him and send him wealth, so he did. The preacher wrote back with something else, “Do this and, yadda yadda yadda, and send more money.” This went on and on, at the end of the monologue the comedian said he filed to start his own church.
@Throckmorton on Twitter exposes the Hell out of these scammers.He is a psychology Prof at a Christian College who originally was a promoter of conversion therapy, did a documentary on it was awarded by NARTH, the whole 9 yards. Then he reconnected with one of his gay-> straight converts who in fact was still gay. His eyes were opened and now he does quite a bit to fight gay conversion “therapy.” Throckmorton & another prof wrote a book on Thomas Jefferson and took down David Barton’s Jefferson lies, and he does a tremendous lot to take down these fake preachers. People inside these chruches tip him off and he blogs about it. His latest is taking down a ministry called “Gospel for Asia.” Organized religion is all about power, control and money, however there do exist true Christ followers who are good people, Warren Throckmorton is one of them. But then there are a LOT of “religious” ppl who are simply insane, they really just want tribe dominance and strive/thrive for it, the ones who scream that every child deserves a mother and a father but then go radio silent when our American Justice Department separates children from their parents when the parents have crossed the border illegally. When they forcibly remove a breastfeeding baby from the mother’s breast, humm, radio silence.
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