Cathal Mcnaughton / Reuters

A ledger from the Hyde Park Magdalene Laundry showing payments for services is seen on display during a "Magdalene Survivors Together" news conference in Dublin Tuesday.

Ireland’s government was directly involved in sending girls and women to work for nothing in laundries run by Catholic orders, a landmark report published Tuesday concluded.

The report by Irish Senator Martin McAleese found that orphans and abused, neglected or unruly children were among more than 10,000 sent to the Magdalen Laundries from 1922 to 1996.

Some had committed minor crimes, others were simply homeless or poor. Women with mental or physical disabilities and some people with psychiatric illness also found themselves in the laundries.

Their average age, the report found, was 23, but the youngest child was just nine and the oldest known entrant was 89.

Activists called on the government to issue a formal apology and pay compensation, with one group saying those affected had been "treated like slaves."

Their plight came to greater public attention when it was the subject of a 2002 film called The Magdalene Sisters, which used a different spelling.

And in June 2011, the United Nations’ Committee on Torture highlighted allegations of "physical, emotional abuses and other ill-treatment" and said it was "gravely concerned" at Ireland’s failure to "protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined."

'Traumatic and lasting'
That prompted the Irish government to set up an inquiry chaired by McAleese and its report was published Tuesday afternoon.

"None of us can begin to imagine the confusion and fear experienced by these young girls, in many cases little more than children, on entering the Laundries — not knowing why they were there, feeling abandoned, wondering whether they had done something wrong, and not knowing when — if ever — they would  get out and see their families again,” he wrote in his introduction to the report.

"It must have been particularly distressing for those girls who may have been the victims of abuse in the family, wondering why they were the ones who were excluded or penalized by being consigned to an institution," he said.

"To add to this confusion, most found themselves quite alone in what was, by today’s standards, a harsh and physically demanding work environment. The psychological impact on these girls was undoubtedly traumatic and lasting," he added.

The report found that more than a quarter of referrals were "made or facilitated" by the government. Some 61 percent spent less than a year at the facilities, but 7.7 percent were there for 10 years or more.

Some of the women were brought to the laundries by Ireland’s police, the Gardai, "on a more ad hoc or informal basis, for instance where a woman was temporarily homeless; or where, in the years prior to out-of-hours health services, a juvenile girl needed overnight accommodation," the report said.

The report said that "it cannot be excluded that … a desire to protect rate-payers [tax-payers] from the costs of repeated pregnancies outside marriage may have played a part in some referrals of women to the Magdalen Laundries."

In some cases, the women and children were washing clothes for Ireland’s military, health service and department of education.

The report cited testimony from a number of women about the conditions they experienced:

• One woman who was in three laundries told the inquiry there were "no beatings, only working. Hardest work ever."
• Another woman said "They were very, very cruel verbally — 'your mother doesn’t want you, why do you think you’re here' and things like that."
• One said she was put in "a padded cell" three times and told "if I didn’t work there’d be no food and the infirmary."
• Another woman said that when she wet the bed "they pinned the sheet to me back and I was walking on the veranda with it."
• "You learned not to ask questions or complain. You couldn’t be forward in any way. Talking was a thing that was seen as sinful," another said.

State 'turned a blind eye'
In a statement, campaign group Justice for Magdalenes called on Enda Kenny, Ireland’s prime minister, to issue an apology to the survivors of the laundries and set up a “non-adversarial compensation process.”

"Magdalene survivors have waited too long for justice and this should not be now burdened with either a complicated legal process or a closed-door policy of compensation," the statement said.

Children’s charity Barnardos said in a statement that the report showed the Irish government had "turned a blind eye to the appalling conditions in which Irish citizens lived, while supporting the religious orders who enslaved them in financial and other ways."

"The women who were imprisoned in these Laundries suffered appalling and shaming injustices, often for the whole of their lives, and deserve a full unambiguous apology from the Government," Barnardos' Chief Executive Fergus Finlay said. "These women were treated like slaves and deserve adequate compensation for the work they did."

Responding to the report, Kenny said he was "sorry for those people that they lived in that kind of environment," but stopped short of making a formal apology on behalf of the state, the Irish Times reported.

Related:

UN panel urges Ireland to probe Catholic torture

Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images

Schoolgirls walk in the village of Istalif north of Kabul in May, 2012. Afghan girls have been legally free to attend school since the Taliban was toppled in 2001. But vicious militant attacks, a lack of adequate facilities and teachers, and a tradition which holds that girls belong in the home are some of the obstacles which they need to overcome.

Leaders of the Afghan Taliban have pledged to promote women's education as part of an apparent attempt to restart peace talks with the West, according to a document seen by a British newspaper.

"Women are also a big part of our human society," the document shown to The Sunday Times states. (Newspaper operates behind a paywall).

"The Islamic emirate will create a level ground for women's education in light of its constitution," according to the document written in Pashto, the language spoken by the vast majority of the Taliban's members, the newspaper reported.

During its years in power, the austere and deeply conservative Sunni Muslim Taliban shuttered girls' schools and stopped women from working outside the home.  Now, millions of Afghan girls attend school, but vicious militant attacks, a lack of adequate facilities and teachers, and a tradition that holds that girls belong in the home stop many others from getting an education. 

The paper obtained by The Times could not be independently verified and it was not thought to be directly linked to peace talks.  However, it did show current thinking among the leaders of the group, according to the newspaper.

The newspaper reported that a go-between who claimed to have links to the Quetta shura -- the Taliban's leadership council based in neighboring Pakistan -- had provided it the policy paper. 

Afghan police commander leads defection to Taliban

Last week, the Obama administration, in a move aimed at reviving Afghan peace talks, reportedly sweetened a proposed deal under which it would transfer Taliban detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the only U.S. prisoner of war who is being held by Taliban allies in Pakistan.

The revised proposal, a concession from an earlier U.S. offer, would alter the sequence of the move of five senior Taliban figures held for years at the U.S. military prison to the Gulf state of Qatar, sources familiar with the case told Reuters.

Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

 The three-page document shown to the Times also seemed to be making assurances to the Afghan army, which has received extensive training from the United States, saying it was effective in "guaranteeing national security," the Times said. 

It did warn that a Taliban-led government would "prohibit" the military from meddling in politics, the newspaper added.

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According to the Times, the paper "shows a clear desire by the Taliban to enter a political process when NATO combat troops complete their withdrawal at the end of 2014, and sets out a plan for an electoral system which, it says, would ensure fair representation for minority ethnic groups." 

Minority ethnic and religious groups -- in particular Shiite Hazaras -- were brutally oppressed by the Taliban, which was ousted by U.S.-backed Afghan forces 2001.   

The document also said the Taliban opposed terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, which it sheltered in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks on the United States. 

Karzai: a ‘prisoner in his palace’?

"We condemn terrorism ... and consider it our duty to fight terrorism and corruption," the document stated, according to the newspaper.

"Our poor nation is the victim of this terrorism," the paper added.

Afghanistan is not only one of the world's poorest nations despite billions in foreign aid spent there since the Taliban was toppled, it is also considered to be one of the most corrupt, according to Transparency International. 

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Wahdat Afghan / Reuters

An Afghan schoolgirl receives treatment at a hospital after allegedly being poisoned in Takhar province May 23, 2012.

KABUL – Over 100 girls from Afghanistan’s northern Jawzjan province in Afghanistan were hospitalized Monday after allegedly being poisoned.  The girls, ages 8 to 22, fell ill while attending class at Meser Abad High School, local officials told NBC News.

More than 300 schoolgirls in the province have allegedly experienced poisoning in the last two weeks.

Local officials blamed the Taliban for the schoolgirls’ poisoning, however, the Taliban have rejected the accusation.

Some speculate that the illnesses could be blamed on mass hysteria linked to fears of a Taliban takeover once the U.S. and international forces withdraw from the country in 2014.

Both the Afghan government and NATO forces have done blood tests on the students after the poisonings, but have found no traces of poison.   

Experts have said that the poisoning scare has all the “earmarks” of mass hysteria. Robert Bartholomew, an expert on mass hysteria, told the AFP that the scare is typical of social panic in other war zones like Kosovo in the past.

 "The tell-tale signs of psychogenic illness in these Afghan outbreaks include the preponderance of schoolgirls; the conspicuous absence of a toxic agent; transient, benign symptoms; rapid onset and recovery; plausible rumors; the presence of a strange odor; and anxiety generated from a wartime backdrop.”  

EPA

School girls receive first aid in Jowzjan on July 2.

NBC spoke with Heather Barr, an Afghanistan Researcher for Human Rights Watch, based in Kabul, about the incidents and why the education of girls is such a potent symbol of change since the fall of the Taliban.  

Read a Q & A with Barr below:

Why is girls’ education still the subject of the alleged poisoning attacks?
Schoolgirls, their teachers and their schools are a soft target for insurgent groups seeking to terrorize communities and demonstrate the government's inability to protect communities. The Taliban has issued recent statements talking about their commitment to education, but these statements conspicuously do not mention girls' education – and threats and attacks continue.

Why is poison a main method of disruption?
These [alleged] poisonings are very perplexing, primarily because we have yet to see clear scientific evidence of the presence of poison, in spite of testing by [NATO’s] International Security Assistance Force and international organizations. 

Some experts have suggested that these incidents may have a psychological explanation rather than a chemical one. If that is true, it speaks volumes about the trauma and fear school children experience simply going to school every day, due to threats and attacks against schools.

It would also beg many worrying questions about the arrests that have been made in Takhar and the confessions from some of those arrested. [She was referring to the alleged poisoning of students in Afghanistan’s Northeastern Takhar Province]

Whether or not there is poison involved, these incidents are having a devastating effect on girls' education.

Do these attacks against schools have the desired outcome?  Does it disrupt education for girls? Are families frightened or defiant?
I'm afraid that the attacks do have the desired outcome. Many schoolgirls and their families are defiant in the face of threats and attacks, but at the same time half of all girls are not in school, and security is unquestionably the cause of some of these girls being denied education.

What is the Afghan government doing about the attacks?
The government should make public, and share with international experts, any scientific evidence they have regarding the use of poison in these cases. By doing so can they lay to rest questions about whether poison is really involved and gain assistance in prevent future incidents.

Is this situation likely to continue?
Tragically the poisoning incidents seem to be rapidly gaining momentum at the moment. It is urgent that the government respond effectively and find a way to prevent these incidents. And the first steps have to be understanding what poisons – if any – are involved.

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Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

About 150 Afghan schoolgirls were poisoned on Tuesday after drinking contaminated water at a high school in the country's north, officials said, blaming it on conservative radicals opposed to female education. 

Since the 2001 toppling of the Taliban, which banned education for women and girls, females have returned to schools, especially in Kabul.

But periodic attacks still occur against girls, teachers and their school buildings, usually in the more conservative south and east of the country, from where the Taliban insurgency draws most support. 

"We are 100 percent sure that the water they drunk inside their classes was poisoned. This is either the work of those who are against girls' education or irresponsible armed individuals," said Jan Mohammad Nabizada, a spokesman for education department in northern Takhar province. 

Some of the 150 girls, who suffered from headaches and vomiting, were in critical condition, while others were able to go home after treatment in hospital, the officials said.

They said they knew the water had been poisoned because a larger tank used to fill the affected water jugs was not contaminated. 

"This is not a natural illness. It's an intentional act to poison schoolgirls," said Haffizullah Safi, head of Takhar's public health department.

None of the officials blamed any particular group for the attack, fearing retribution from anyone named. 

The Afghan government said last year that the Taliban, which has been trying to adopt a more moderate face to advance exploratory peace talks, had dropped its opposition to female education. 

But the insurgency has never stated that explicitly and in the past acid has been thrown in the faces of women and girls by hardline Islamists while walking to school. 

Education for women was outlawed by the Taliban government from 1996-2001 as un-Islamic.

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