Glennon: "Acknowledgement: Restoring Human Rights and Dignity"

Theresa Glennon (Temple University James E. Beasley School of Law) recently posted her Article, "Acknowledgement: Restoring Human Rights and Dignity" on SSRN. Here is the Abstract:

Through most of the twentieth century, the Irish government allocated its authority and resources to a system that demeaned, confined, and mistreated women and girls viewed as deviating from Catholic doctrine on sexuality and reproduction. What does justice demand in response to this systematic gender discrimination?

This essay reviews the historic abuses in Ireland of “wayward” women and girls confined in the Magdalene Laundries, “deviant” single mothers isolated during pregnancy and separated from their “illegitimate” children after birth, and children in adoption, foster care and residential schools. Shocking media revelations and effective advocacy by victim-survivors and their allies compelled the Irish government to initiate investigations of these abuses. The collection of essays in Redress: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice evaluates those efforts, finding that they have fallen far short of satisfying key principles of transitional justice and human rights. In addition, this essay highlights the government’s failure to fully examine its zealous adoption of religious doctrine regarding sexuality and reproduction that provided the basis for its mistreatment of women and children. Like other democracies, the Irish government confronts the difficult challenge of how best to learn from the most difficult aspects of its history and ensure that it will act in accordance with the human rights of its citizenry rather than the dictates of religious morality.

The Irish experience has implications for other states as well. The final section of this essay reviews a largely-ignored history of practices in the United States that led to the confinement, punishment, and sterilization of women and girls viewed as deviant in relation to sexuality and reproduction. The transitional justice and human rights principles examined in Redress, as well as principles that ensure protection from the undue influence of religious mandates on sexuality and morality on government actions, provide a path for federal and state officials in the U.S. to address – and redress – their own similar historic and current gendered discriminatory practices.