I'm trying to remember whether it was the movie or some articles I read about the Magdelene laundries, but local authorities enjoyed some of the profits from the laundries. They turned over the girls and women to the laundries and received money for it. I recall, during my childhood, hearing girls say that their parents threatened to send them to live at the convent. We had no idea about the laundries.
My sister became pregnant at 15. She was sent away. My parents told everyone, including us younger siblings, that she went to Atlanta, GA to have her shoulder rebroken. Years later I found out that my parents placed her in a Roman Catholic Home for Unwed Mothers in New Orleans, LA. She spent her pregnancy there, then gave her baby boy up for adoption. She said it was a decent place, in a stately, rather large Victorian house. She was given her schoolwork to do. She had chores she was assigned. She got to do hobbies and watch TV. She got to cook meals. She was given an allowance and pernitted to catch the trolley and busses to go downtown, on her own or with other girls and women from the home. They sent her to the doctor on her own. She said the only bad thing was that my parents insisted she give the baby up for adoption.