Podcast: Play in new window
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
Sarah Benson is the CEO of Ruhama.
Sarah Benson, Ruhama CEO
The Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity were credited with founding Ruhama on Ruhama’s website up to February 2015, but all references to both those orders have been deleted from the pages of their website since, although some old annual report PDFs still mention them. Both those orders have refused all compensation to their victims. Both orders have flatly refused to even meet victims’ groups.
The four orders who ran the Magdalene Laundries (of which Good Shepherd Sisters and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity were two) made hundreds of millions of euro from selling the laundry properties. Despite their wealth and their influence over Ruhama, the bulk of Ruhama’s funding comes from the taxpayer.
These orders have been condemned by, among others the UN; the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said “Girls placed in the institutions were forced to work in slavery-like conditions and were often subject to inhuman, cruel and degrading treatment as well as to physical and sexual abuse”.
Headlines like “Over 300 women affected by trafficking and prostitution needed help last year” put high numbers alongside the concept of trafficked women in Ireland, however a closer reading of Ruhama’s most recent annual report reveal that in that year they first encountered “17 women [who] were suspected victims of sex trafficking” in 2013, my emphasis.
