Dutch women sue Good Shepherd convents over forced labour

19 women aged 62 to 91 take case to Haarlem district court for abuse from 1951 to 1979

Nineteen women in the Netherlands have accused an order of Catholic nuns of years of forced labour while locked up in convents, saying they were “abused on industrial scale”.

The case before the Haarlem district court relates to some 15,000 teenage Dutch girls who were the wards of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd at convents across the country from 1951 to 1979.