Chapter 9 — Record of abuse (female witnesses)

Neglect

Preparation for puberty was specifically reported by 36 witnesses as an area of neglect through misinformation, lack of education and discussion of all sexual matters. The onset of menstruation was described as a particularly distressing experience for many female witnesses due both to their own lack of understanding about what was happening and the response of staff to their circumstances. Witnesses reported that adolescent development and menstruation were not discussed and that in many instances their attempts to seek advice and reassurance were harshly sanctioned. Witnesses reported feeling that normal bodily changes were faults of some kind. A witness reported that when she started to menstruate, she was sent for by the Resident Manager who gave her a lecture about being dirty, calling her a ‘filthy devil’. There was absolutely no sanitary facilities for a girl at a certain time of your life, you had to make do yourself. We got no advice at all, we learned from older girls.... We used talk among ourselves. When it ...(menstruation)... first happened to me I hadn’t the courage to go up and ask, we were very much afraid to ask ...(for sanitary protection).... • After I had my period the nuns kept telling me “you can now have a baby if a man touches your hair”. So when this foster father began touching my hair I thought I was pregnant.

In addition to the distress associated with menstruation in these circumstances witnesses reported being humiliated and abused in response to any appearance of physical development. They reported feeling embarrassed and ashamed of their breast development. Witnesses reported that an aspect of the neglect experienced in this regard was being forced to wear inappropriate garments for the purpose of concealing normal physical development. When we started to grow breasts, we couldn’t ask the nuns anything, you weren’t allowed grow breasts, I was told my breasts were ugly. ... I was friendly with an outside girl and she gave me a black bra, you know ... brassiere, we were not allowed wear them. Well she, Sr ...X... caught me and she threw me into a room and she beat me black and blue. We were not allowed wear them you know. • I was obviously growing up by now and I had quite big breasts. Sr ...X... would come up to me get hold of my breasts and squash them as hard as she could, she would then order me to “flatten them down and stop encouraging” it ... “flatten them down, flatten them”. She would scream at me. So I would just try and hold myself in ’til she left me alone. ... Then one day she got hold of me and told me she had got me a “roll on”, I thought I was going to get some nylons ...(stockings)... and felt very grown up. She said “this will help to keep you in”. ... When I put it ...(corset)... on she made me haul it up over my breasts to flatten them down, I could hardly breathe and I had to wear this over my breasts for months.

Witnesses reported having little or no knowledge of intimate relationships and being misinformed about basic details regarding sexual matters. Some witnesses, including three who stated they were unable to read, described being handed a book on the facts of life when they were discharged. Others reported receiving minimal education in relation to sexual matters during the 1970s and 1980s. Witnesses frequently stated that they received no sex education and that sexual matters were never discussed by the staff. The absence of open discussion and information and the culture of silence, fear and denial that witnesses described regarding sexual matters in the Schools were reported to have contributed to neglect and abuse on several levels. A witness who was discharged after 16 years in the School, without any preparation for outside life or relationships with men, reported being raped and abandoned on her first date. Other witnesses said: ‘the facts of life were never discussed, I knew it ... (sexual abuse)... was wrong but we had no language to tell’. We didn’t know anything about getting a period. There was nothing about a period only, “if you sit beside a man you get pregnant”. I remember getting a period, I thought something was wrong with me. I didn’t tell anyone because I was afraid, I thought “I’ll get into trouble”. There was no one to tell. • We had no sex education, the only sex education we had was about 10 minutes, from the priest. He did a thing on the blackboard to the whole class.

Witnesses reported that with little or no preparation for independent living their discharge from the Schools and transition to life outside the institution was traumatic and, for some, overwhelming. Areas of neglect most frequently reported by female witnesses in relation to their discharge were: Lack of preparation and training in basic life skills Lack of assessment, supervision and follow-up of placements Lack of opportunity to say goodbye to siblings and friends Lack of personal information and related documentation.

A large number of witnesses who had spent most of their childhood in institutional care reported a profound sense of displacement and bewilderment when discharged from the Schools. It was reported as common for residents to be informed they were being discharged on the morning of their departure or the previous evening, without any prior discussion. Most witnesses stated that they left the Schools with few possessions, some reported they were given a suitcase or brown parcel containing a change of clothing, and others described leaving with ‘the clothes we stood up in’. Reports of poor preparation for discharge were heard from witnesses in relation to all decades, including the 1980s. ‘You were shown the door and put out, none of us had anywhere to go. The door was open and you were out with 2 suits and your underwear.’

Most witnesses stated that they left the Schools without necessary life skills, including the ability to handle money, shop, budget, cook, pay bills, use public transport or to participate in the social world beyond the institution. They reported not being given any advice to assist them cope with living outside the institutional life to which they had been accustomed. After I left I used to sleep in the mart in ...local town... for about 2 weeks. I had nowhere to go and so I said I’d go to England. When I went over, you know, I couldn’t give the right change, I just didn’t know ...(how to handle money)....

A witness from one School reported that a bequest was made by an ex-resident to the institution to allow each resident to receive a small amount of pocket money each week to foster independence. The witness reported that residents lined up to get the money each week. It was immediately taken back and the residents were informed it was being saved for them. This witness reported that she asked for it when she was being discharged and was told it had been used to buy her clothes. I didn’t know anything about money. ... You don’t know how to go into the shop and ask, you never done daily things, you never done your own washing, so you had to find out ...by ... trial and error. I remember going into ...(department store)... and the girl there helped me, she was great. I had never bought clothes before. I had to learn all this, pay your rent, pay your light ...(electricity bill)... and all this, even when you were leaving they should have told us, or got us ready, given us some information but they gave us nothing, we had to apply for everything and then it was different to what you were told in the School.

A number of the 64 witnesses who were discharged to their family home commented on the difficulty they experienced reintegrating with families from whom they had been separated, in some situations with little contact for a number of years. Witnesses described being dropped on their parents’ or older siblings’ doorstep without prior notice or any further contact, follow-up or aftercare. Among the circumstances which confronted witnesses were impoverished living conditions, homelessness, sexual abuse and rejection by families who had become strangers.

Witnesses reported being placed directly in employment without consultation as to what they wished to do. ‘I was still in their grip, they took me, they told me without asking me. They took me to ...named city... and put me to work in hospital.’ The limited information provided about where they were going and what work they were expected to do was reported repeatedly by witnesses. They reported not being given any practical advice or reassurance about what their new situation might entail or who to contact if they experienced any difficulties. Witnesses described being handed a train and/or boat ticket, with the address of a prospective employer or relative and left to make their own way to Dublin, London or another city in the UK. The Committee heard a small number of reports of witnesses wandering aimlessly when they arrived until ‘rescued by the Police’ or some kind-hearted person who assisted them in getting to their destination.

Sixty one (61) witnesses reported being abused in work and holiday placements, many of whom emphasised that the lack of adequate assessment and supervision of aftercare left them vulnerable to abuse. Twenty eight (28) witnesses reported being abused in various ways by employers following their discharge, often under threat of being returned to the Schools if they resisted or disclosed their abuse. The types of abuse reported by witnesses in these circumstances included physical and sexual abuse, not being paid and working excessively long hours. We used to go on holidays and from the first day I hated it. He was all right, the father..... She ...(mother in the holiday family)... wanted me to look after the kids and do the work, she was cruel. She made me ...(work).... I was in secondary school for one year, and then I went to the holiday family and at the end of the summer, the School used to phone up and say to come back, this time they did not phone so ... the family phoned and the nuns said “will you not keep her, is there not a school there that she can go to?” So they kept me and did not send me to school, I was a skivvy. I was only about 14 and got no more school....

Fourteen (14) witnesses reported being transferred to laundries when they were discharged, with no recollection of any formal transfer procedure. One witness reported being transferred to a laundry as punishment for having a boyfriend; others reported being transferred as punishment for what might be described as assertive behaviour. I’m pushed up against the wall and they ...Sr X and 3 lay staff... had me in on the wall beating the head off me, beating me unconscious. I put me hand out to save myself.... I knocked Sr ...X’s...veil off, it was accidental I did not strike that nun. I’m put into this room, it was out in the yard, there was no light in it and I was there until next day. Then I’m taken out by a Miss ...Y... a lady she was, a real lady she was a lovely woman, and she told me I was being sent down the country, I was being transferred. She put her arms around me and said “I’m sorry”.... I went down ... early in the morning and never got a chance to say goodbye to my sisters.... (Sent at 13 years to work in laundry)

The lack of planning and involvement of witnesses in any discussions about discharge resulted in them having no time or opportunity to say goodbye to siblings and friends. This abrupt ending to their years in care was reported by witnesses to be traumatic. ‘No great goodbyes from what had been my home for 9 years’. Discharges in these circumstances were particularly distressing for witnesses who were leaving younger siblings behind whom they knew were being abused. Others reported that the loss of friendships was distressing, both at the time and in subsequent years, as they never regained contact. It was the day our ...witness’s sister... left, I were sitting on the swing. I were crying, my sister, she just said goodbye to me. I just heard that she was gone for good, she didn’t know herself where she was going. She ...(Sr X)... gave me a backhander because I was crying. I split my head. I told them ...(in the hospital)... I fell, the nun was there beside me you couldn’t say anything or you’d get worse.

Another witness who had spent several months in hospital following a leg injury was 16 years old when she was ready to be discharged. The witness reported that the Resident Manager of the School where she had previously resided for many years refused to readmit her or offer any further assistance. She was discharged from hospital to the local county home and reported ongoing medical problems that required several subsequent operations.

Many witnesses reported that there remained a consistent lack of preparation for independent living and little aftercare provided by Schools in the 1970s and 1980s. Others reported that there were some improvements and changes in practice and procedures since the 1970s, with planned discharges and some preparation for independent living. Sr ...X... said “it’s time for ye to leave”. I said “what?” She said “I’m going to give ye a few days now, you can finish your Junior Cert and then you have to go”. We ...(witness and co-resident)... thought, “what on earth are we going to do, where are we going to go?” We had nothing. Within a couple of days we had found a flat, the 2 of us, we found it ourselves and we left out the door with a couple of suitcases. I had to leave school, I would have liked to have stayed on. I did alright in my Junior Cert, but I had to leave. A teacher in the school phoned up and explained the situation and got me a job. • When I left I wanted to do ...training... she ...(Sr X)... was giving out about the funds ...(cost).......named lay care staff... persuaded her to let me go. I remember I was brought up to a big city, a place I hadn’t a clue of where we were, I was put into a B&B by Sr ...X... and Sr ...Y... and she ...(Sr X)... gave me a cheque for £200 and I had to find a flat for myself, I had no pots, no pans, nothing, I was on my own. There were times when I was there when I was hungry, a friend from School would give me soup and bread.

Most witnesses who had been in institutional care for an extended period of time reported that when they were discharged they were given little information about the terms of their admission or discharge, their medical history or any of their formal documentation such as educational or birth certificates. The Committee heard 15 reports of witnesses being provided with incorrect information regarding family circumstances, for example being told that their parents were deceased or that they had no siblings. For many of these witnesses such misinformation has continued to be a cause of great distress and unresolved anger: I applied for my birth cert after I left the School and discovered that my mother wasn’t married. I had been told all my life ... (in named School)... that she was dead and that my father died when I was 2. It was a shock, I went looking ...(for information)...when I was getting married and the priest put me off.... Since then ...(in recent years)... I got the details off the social worker, she arranged for me to meet her ... (witness’s birth mother).... When I met the poor lady, she was a lovely woman, she didn’t want me given up, she was supposed to be paying for me. They ...(Sisters)... had her name and details all the time and she lived near, and none of this was told you before you left. They should have talked to us, you had to deal with it all yourself, it ...(the information)... was coming through the post, in a flat, on your own, finding out she was alive all the time.