Rumour Nuns Want to Re-open Stanhope Street Laundry for "Fallen Women"?

[Gaye Dalton]

Just caught a well sourced, but (as yet) unsubstantiated rumour that the orders are trying to get the old Stanhope Street Laundry re0opened as a "residential centre" for "victims of trafficking" - which is the term they use increasingly for sex workers and anyone they deem to be "at risk of sex work" or "affected by sex work" -

You couldn't make this stuff up and it gets easier to see how the mentality that allowed and encouraged the laundries was created every day..

Has anyone heard any more of this?

Where to START on how wrong that particular building would be, in how many ways.

• Trauma trigger to laundry survivors
• Subliminal intimidation of proposed victims
• Mockery of former victims
• Extreme bad taste
• Why do they need a "residential centre" for autonomous adults?
• How restrictive will the Residence be?
• How voluntary will entry be (currently Gardaí often offer sex workers the choice between Ruhama and arrest. Ruhama are often called in without the consent of the women involved)
• Is it a good idea for people sex workers already loath and fear to be running  a residential service
• Shouldn't that building be turned over to the redress board to fix the victims of their last foray into residential services?

 

[pauline jackson]

Hopefully its only a rumeur. The nuns consider the Women entirly responsable. This has causd suffering to many because of thier notion of sin. Its not sinfull to get pregnant. Its not stupid to be taken in by men who think that its always the fault of women. Its in the whole system. Thay dont want to know what its like to live in a world that demands that women do the impossable. At a time when thay need consolation thay get disgust. And locking up innocient women is unjust. Find themselves a few fallen men and keep out of others lifes. After death culture needs to stop. Even now thay are ready to call the whole world liers than assume what contributed to thier wealth.

[Gaye Dalton]

I don't think it is ok to wish the tyranny of the Nuns on "fallen women" either!

[Úna Walsh]

I like the idea of confiscating the building and turning it over to the redress board. As for the rest who would trust nuns?

[Gaye Dalton]

To be honest "fallen women" are fighting the nuns for their lives behind the scenes...they hate and fear them...

Personally I think the Stanhope building would have a great future converted into affordable housing "starter home" apartments...perhaps the life and vitality all those young couples and people would, in time, cleanse the suffering from within those walls? 

[Úna Walsh]

Nice idea.

[Kathleen O'Malley.]

Should this be true we will campagne strongly against it.  They must never be allowed to have any control over human beings again.  Keep a close watch on their movements.  They obviously miss raking in all the money we earned for them.  Evil is what they are.

Kathleen O'Malley. "Childhood Interrupted" 

[Gaye Dalton]

Well time to mobilise look at this:

http://www.ruhama.ie/easyedit/files/presentationbyjanepillinger.pdf

It is all absolute BS...sex workers hate Ruhama, they only get a few well paid frauds and poor women who have been offered the choice between Ruhama and conviction and/or deportation to use as tokens (stop me if you have heard this one before)...their high rent PR guy writes most of the "testimonials"...if you read enough you start to realise the syntax is always the same. (Hmmmm I am not sure how they justify paying for top flight PR out of HSE funding that would be better spent on essential services myself)

Tucked away at the bottom under "New Strategies Needed for Fund Raising from Statutory and Non-Statutory Sources" we have this little beauty:

"Specialised and safe accommodation for victims of trafficking and women who have exited prostitution irrespective of legal status"

Of course, those people need "specialised and safe accommodation" just as badly as pregnant and/or ostracised young women did in the 50s and 60s...but is it a good idea for anyone to fund The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity or the Good Shepherd Sisters through their front organisation to fund it?

Even BEFORE we look at the fact that Ruhama do nothing but abuse and silence sex workers. They force themselves on them and claim to represent them against their wishes. They are also telling a lot of lies and demanding laws that they know will make sex workers lives next to impossible...let's cut it back to the bone...

...what did they do LAST time they got funding to "save fallen women"?

If it matters SO SINCERELY to them, shouldn't they be "saving fallen women" (with or without their consent) from their own deep pockets...AFTER they have paid the bill for the damage to the LAST batch of fallen women they saved.

There has been a lot of money gone into PR to sidetrack supporters of the Magdalene and other victims of institutional abuse from joining those dots I can tell you.

I never ended, Ruhama began forcing themselves on sex workers lives in 1989 - 7 years later the Good Shepherd Sisters closed their last laundry...

[pauline jackson]

It sounds very much like the good intentions of the groups for survivers. First thing and last is getting names down. After that thay become elusive. Sex workers or lost exiles dont  need th kind of treatment meant to break them. Thay need empathy. Nuns become nasty because thay back each other up. One like that soon turns into a complot against women. Thay have no interest in the complexety of relations between couples. Thay have the impression that all men beat thier wives and children. That a clear message but the past is the proof. Times change but not human nature.A group of the same sex locked up together becomes a gang as dangerous as the ones on the streets. Many women are sensitive when thay have to make a new start. That bunch are the stone trowing champions of the planet.

[Gaye Dalton]

You know you are SO right about groups of women locked up together...that was the worse of it in care...and I have seen so many other groups descend into bitchfests (What I saw behind the scenes of organising special Olympics when we hosted it needed an XXX rating for emotional violence, all these D4/Hunting types were EVIL to each other...non-stop until it was over.) 

Anyway, all that aside, if you really want to help and/or support someone the first thing you do is ask them if they want your help, then what their situation is, and what they need.

The next thing you do, before ANYTHING else, is listen to their answers

Ruhama have never done that and they never will, they just ignore and silence anyone who doesn't say what they want them to say, and tell whatever lies suit them...

It's a horrible set up...

 

[pauline jackson]

Hello Kathleen. I am glad to see you back. I agree there letting this happen would be non assistance of persons in danger.

[Kathleen O'Malley.]

Let us wait and see.  Surley they would require a Licence?  we all know what happened in days of yore, the Government granted such we must not let this happen again.

Hi Pauline.

Kathleen O'Malley. "Childhood Interrupted"

[Gaye Dalton]

They are already government funded to ask and lobby for this stuff...it is incredible, right and wrong do not seem to appear anywhere in the picture.

The government are falling over themselves to give them whatever they want, to be honest I think the politicians are scared of them.