Survivor testimony published by the Justice for Magdalenes campaign group also depicted the workhouses as harsh and exploitative places.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

They were workhouses to where the Irish authorities sent Catholic girls and women considered "troubled" to do unpaid manual work.

BBC: Bethany survivors want justice after Magdalene apology

The laundries were Catholic-run workhouses that operated in Ireland and where girls and women had to do unpaid, manual labour.

BBC: Magdalene laundries: Women confident of state apology

To date the inquiry has identified more than 170 facilities that operated during the time period, including children's homes, orphanages, industrial schools, workhouses, borstals, hospital units and schools for children with disabilities.

BBC: Sir Anthony Hart

The report's authors spoke to about 100 women who had worked in the laundries between the foundation of the Irish state in 1922 and the closure of the last of the workhouses in 1996.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The report, released Tuesday, acknowledges that Ireland's government sent thousands of women and girls to "harsh and physically demanding" workhouses known as Magdalen Laundries, where they worked and lived without pay, sometimes for years.

CNN: STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Livesey spent his life campaigning for the working classes - despite becoming rich selling cheese - opposing the workhouses in favour of giving the poor the chance to better themselves through education and abstinence.

BBC: A History of the World in Lancashire

The Irish government's decision to apologise to the women who worked in the Magdalene Laundries - workhouses run by nuns - has prompted members of the Bethany Home Survivors Group group to say they also want justice.

BBC: Bethany survivors want justice after Magdalene apology