Irish victims seek probe into Catholic laundries

Ireland's human rights watchdog has appealed to the government to investigate the abuse of women and girls in prison-style Catholic laundries, a long-unresolved issue of Irish abuse scandals in church-run institutions.

The Irish Human Rights Commission found in a report published Tuesday that state authorities ordered hundreds of women and girls into the workhouses. They once were popular repositories for women accused of moral shortcomings, such as giving birth out of wedlock, and for women convicted of petty criminal offenses. The last laundry closed in 1970. (AP)