Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund
415 Yonge Street Suite 1800
Toronto, Ontario
M5B 2E7

News Release

May 13, 2003

Contact: Diana Majury
National Legal Committee
LEAF
(416) 595-7170 ext. 228

For immediate publication

LEAF DEMANDS SUBSTANTIVE EQUALITY FOR WOMEN PRISONERS
OTTAWA - The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) submits that the treatment of federally sentenced women violates their right to equality protected in Canada by s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and in domestic and international human rights statutes and jurisprudence. LEAF takes the position that the Canadian Human Rights Commission's systemic review and special report must address questions, not only about the degree to which the human rights of federally sentenced women are violated, but the degree to which attempts to remedy such infringements have repeatedly failed federally sentenced women as women.

Gillian Calder, the author of the report on behalf of LEAF, writes, "in order for federally sentenced women to achieve substantive equality, the standard against which an equality analysis must be measured is one informed by a systemic analysis of the needs of federally sentenced women as women, and grounded in a contextual approach to the lived realities of women in prison in Canada." hi considering the submissions of all parties, LEAF asks the Canadian Human Rights Commission to rethink the issues of the provision of services to women in pris on and the gendered nature of the current prison structure in Canada.