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OTTAWA-- The Elizabeth Fry Society, along with aboriginal and women's groups, launched a human rights complaint on behalf of 350 federal female, aboriginal prisoners in Canada Thursday.

The groups allege Corrections Canada discriminates against female prisoners in three ways: sex, race and disability.

The Elizabeth Fry Society says Canada's prisons systematically brutalize women inmates and violate their rights. The groups involved in the claim are calling for a broad-based inquiry by the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

The Elizabeth Fry Society chose International Women's Day as the day to make the announcement.

And its announcement coincides with a new initiative by Amnesty International drawing attention to the abuse of women around the world.

Amnesty's report is called "Broken Bodies, Shattered Minds".

It calls for governments to commit themselves to protecting women and girls from torture.

And a study by the World Bank shows 20 per cent of all women have been physically or sexually abused.

The Canadian complaint addresses several issues, including:

• Putting women who are classified as maximum security prisoners in cramped, poorly serviced wings of men's prisons
• A number of the women living in makeshift maximum security prisons have mental problems but no access to much needed services
• Some of those women with mental problems end up in segregation for months, making the condition, and situation, worse
• Only one institution in Canada is dedicated to minimum-security female prisoners, and there are only 13 beds
• Most low-security women serve time in cottage-style prisons, which also house medium-security inmates and will eventually accommodate maximum-security women as well
• There is one new facility dedicated to aboriginal healing, but native women classified as maximum security are not allowed in

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PLEASE NOTE: These pages are always going to be under review and revision. They have been assembled for the use of students in Gen024, Medical Ethics.  The course is offered at St. Lawrence College, Kingston, Canada.  For further information on this course or to report problems with this page, please contact [email protected]