She was carrying a handbag but it was completely empty

One story of one woman who was sent to a Magdalene Laundry at age 16 and never got out, but died there after 35 years of slavery.

Samantha Long’s mother Margaret Bullen was placed in Gloucester Street (now Sean McDermott Street) Laundry c.1967 and died 35 years later, never having been released into society and her own home. Margaret died of an illness known as Goodpasture Syndrome, a disease of the kidneys and liver – one of the causes is exposure to industrial-strength chemicals such as those used in the Laundries.

[Read more…]

Sayreville

The alleged sexual assaults in the Sayreville case are worse than I’d imagined.

Graphic details of what allegedly happened inside the locker room at the school were also revealed in a report Wednesday on NJ.com.

The report stated that “a freshman football player would be pinned to the locker-room floor, his arms and feet held down by multiple upperclassmen. Then, the victim would be lifted to his feet while a finger was forced into his rectum. Sometimes, the same finger was then shoved into the freshman player’s mouth.”

What is wrong with people.

Six of them were arrested on Friday evening and a seventh was being sought.

Yes secularism can

Tehmina Kazi talks about secularism and Islam, and how the former is good for the latter. She argues that secularism actually adds to the Islamic discourse, because there’s a long tradition of critical thought in Islam.

It makes sense you know. If all religions and none are treated equally, then people are more likely to feel safe discussing and exploring.

Yes, it is

A Fox News station in Arkansas asks a question on its Facebook page. It asks: Is this method of restraining juveniles torture?

The Yell County Juvenile Detention Center uses this restraint mechanism called the “wrap system”. Some juvenile detainees call it “torture”. Now, the Arkansas Department of Human Services has sent a cease and desist letter to Yell County officials asking them to stop using the device. What do you think about the wrap system?

It supplies a photo of the “restraint mechanism”: [Read more…]

Seven villagers were burned alive

Meanwhile, in Tanzania, they’ve been killing “witches.”

Tanzanian police have charged 23 people with murder after seven villagers were burned alive on suspicion of witchcraft.

Though the attacks in Murufiti, a village in the western Kigoma region, happened on Monday, reports only surfaced with the arrests.

Five of those killed were aged over 60, the other two were over 40.

A Tanzanian human rights group estimates that 500 suspected witches are killed in Tanzania annually.

Five hundred. In just one country.

Witnesses say some of the victims were attacked with machetes and their homes burned.

The son of one of the victims, Josephat John, told Tanzania’s Mwananchi newspaper: “When I returned home in the evening, I found the body of my mother lying 10 metres away from our house, while the body of my father was burnt inside the house.”

Murdered because of a delusion.

She is a normal, useless type of a girl

M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad reports on the hatred of Malala in Pakistan.

It wasn’t even reported as breaking news on Pakistani tv, Khan says.

Many Pakistanis would not even have known she was up for the award.

Indeed, Tariq Khattack, editor of the Pakistan Observer newspaper, actually condemned it, telling the BBC: “It’s a political decision and a conspiracy.”

“She is a normal, useless type of a girl. [Read more…]

60 million Indian children

Dilip D’Souza at the Daily Beast tells us about Kailash Satyarthi and what he does and why it needs doing.

India is feeling good today: the Nobel Prize for Peace has gone to our own Kailash Satyarthi, jointly with Pakistan’s Malala Yousufzai. Certainly something to make us proud. Yet the irony is that Satyarthi won it for his efforts, with his Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA, Save Childhood Coalition), to end the exploitation of children in India. [Read more…]