It’s not a genuine apology’: Spanish women reject Catholic attempt to redress Franco incarceration; The Guardian, June 15, 2025

Ashifa Kassam , The Guardian; It’s not a genuine apology’: Spanish women reject Catholic attempt to redress Franco incarceration

"As the members of the Catholic organisation wrapped up their speech with an appeal for forgiveness, the auditorium in Madrid exploded in rage. For decades, many in the audience had grappled with the scars left by their time in Catholic-run institutions; now they were on their feet chanting: “Truth, justice and reparations” and – laying bare their rejection of any apology – “Neither forget, nor forgive”.

It was an unprecedented response to an unprecedented moment in Spain, hinting at the deep fissures that linger over one of the longest-running and least-known institutions of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship: the Catholic-run centres that incarcerated thousands of women and girls as young as eight, subjecting them to barbaric punishments, forced labour and religious indoctrination.

The centres operated under the direction of the Women’s Protection Board, a state-run institution revived in 1941 and helmed by Franco’s wife, Carmen Polo. They aimed to rehabilitate “fallen women”, aged 15 to 25, as well as others deemed to be at risk of deviating from the narrow path marked out for women during the dictatorship.

Survivors, however, describe a reality that was far more brutal. “It was the greatest atrocity Spain has committed against women,” said Consuelo García del Cid, who was drugged by a doctor at her home in Barcelona and taken to a centre in Madrid at the age of 16."