Dirty Laundry

Dirty Laundry is the story of Lily Arthur, a young 17 year old caught between an era of women's liberation and the draconian ideology that young women should be punished for stepping outside of the 'moral codes' of society. Unfortunately for Lily, the draconian ideologies were the ones that controlled her life. 

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For the 'crime' of being pregnant, Lily was forcibly taken away from the man she loved and planned to marry. 

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Taken from her bed in the middle of the night to the Brisbane Watchhouse, she was incarcerated by the state to work indefinitely in a notorious Magdalene laundry in Brisbane. 

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Locked away and hidden, the child of her first love was taken from her in the labour ward of a Brisbane Hospital, and eventually given away to strangers.

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In the few minutes she was allowed to see him through the window, she made him the promise, 'I will see you again, little one. I will see you again'.

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Dirty Laundry is a true story from the war-torn ravages of East End London to the far north of Queensland, Australia, Dirty Laundry exposes the cruelty that challenged the notion of a decent society. 



A precedent court case and a judgement that drove her on to seek justice through a Senate Inquiry.



Follow Lily as she tells of her journey that took her, and a movement of women like herself, on a lifelong battle for justice, and the outcomes of years of activism.