A leading campaigner for abuse survivors has expressed fury after MSPs allowed an order of nuns connected to the Magdalene laundries scandal to join an influential Holyrood group.
Helen Holland, who was given an OBE in 2020 for her services to victims, told The Herald she was "appalled and disgusted" that the Religious Sisters of Charity, had been permitted into the Scottish Parliament's cross party body on Commercial Sexual Exploitation.
Between 1922 and 1996 more than 10,000 women were imprisoned, forced to carry out unpaid labour and subjected to maltreatment in Ireland’s Magdalene institutions.
The women and girls who suffered in the laundries included those who were perceived to be ‘promiscuous’, unmarried mothers, the daughters of unmarried mothers, and those who were considered a burden on their families or the state.
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Some of the girls and women sent to the laundries had become pregnant as a result of rape and incest.
The Religious Sisters of Charity ran Magdalene laundries in Donnybrook in Dublin and at Peacock Lane in Cork.
The Scottish Parliamentary group the order joined in 2021 is co-convened by Labour MSP Rhoda Grant and SNP MSP Ruth Maguire and it states it is "a forum for like-minded people who believe that the legislation surrounding prostitution and sex trafficking is out of date and in need of urgent reform".
Its members include independent MSPs John Mason, Jeremy Balfour and Ash Regan who is working on getting her "Unbuyable Bill" through Holyrood. It would make it an offence to pay for sexual services.
Ms Holland is a survivor of abuse at a children's home run by a different religious order, the Sisters of Nazareth, and has given evidence about how she suffered abuse to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry.
She made clear she did not spend any time in any institution run by the Sisters of Charity which did not run children's homes or any Magdalene laundries in Scotland.
"It's appalling that the Sisters of Charity have been able to join this Holyrood group," Ms Holland said.
"I don't think any group that has been involved in maltreatment of vulnerable individuals should be allowed to join any cross party group - especially ones involved in wanting to help vulnerable people."
She asked whether the Holyrood cross party group and the parliament had checked the background of the order and if so why they had allowed it to take part.
"I am absolutely shocked and disgusted. It makes you wonder if the MSPs did any background history on this order at all?
"Can anyone just join a group regardless of their background and reputation."
She added: "The Magdalene laundries don't come under the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry as they were based in Ireland.
"If the [order] then goes to another country such as Scotland and say we want to be involved in something in Holyrood I would say 'how dare they'. How dare the MSPs and Holyrood allow it.
"I think there are questions for the MSPs and for parliament on this. What checks are made on people? And what is the order's motivation for joining this group?"
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Former resident Elizabeth Coppin told of her experience of living in a Magdalene laundry run by the Religious Sisters of Charity during the 1960s.
"It's a nightmare that you could never come out of," she said in 2023.
"I look back in horror, sometimes in panic, and I think, 'I can't believe this actually happened to me, in my time.'"
She said she was taken into their "care" at the age of 14 where she was held prisoner, slept in a cell that was locked every night, and forced to work six days a week without pay in the commercial laundry business.
"They didn't have an ounce of charity in them," she added.
In 2017 the Sisters of Charity relinquished its involvement in a new maternity hospital in Dublin after the Irish Labour party accused the order of "failing women and children".
After the publication of Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of state involvement with the Magdalen Laundries in 2013, the Religious Sisters of Charity released a statement.
It said: "The Religious Sisters of Charity welcome the publication of the McAleese Report commissioned by the Government to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries.
"We apologise unreservedly to any woman who experienced hurt while in our care.
"In good faith we provided refuge for women at our Magdalen Homes in Donnybrook and Peacock Lane. Some of the women spent a short time with us; some left, returned and left again and some still live with us.
"We co-operated fully with Senator McAleese and his Committee in the preparation of this report and made available all of our archival material. Each individual woman, if she so requests, will be welcomed and provided with any information we have on file regarding her stay with us."
Founded in 1815 by their founder Mary Aikenhead, the Sisters of Charity work across four continents.
The co-conveners of the Holyrood's cross party group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation were approached for comment.
A Scottish Parliament spokesperson said: “Questions about the Membership of a Cross-Party Group are a matter for the group itself.
“Any concern that a group is not operating in line with the requirements of the Code of Conduct can be raised through a complaint to the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee.”
A spokeswoman for the Religious Sisters of Charity in Ireland said the order joined the Holyrood cross party group on Commercial Sexual Exploitation in 2021.
She said the order joined the group because it has anti trafficking missions in countries across the world.
“We have no outstanding payments in any redress scheme in Ireland. We do not owe any money to any scheme in Ireland,” she said.
“We had no children’s homes in Scotland. We ran hospices. The Religious Sisters of Charity confirmed they have met financial commitments under the various redress schemes in Ireland and there are no payments outstanding."
