Friends, As you consider year-end donations (details on how to help below), please keep in mind the work of Women Who Choose to Live, which advocates with women who are criminalized and punished for trying to survive male violence. While much of our work takes place outside the spotlight, we can celebrate the public work we did this year, which includes:

1. Celebrating the release from an unjust prison sentence of Alberta grandmother, farmer, and abuse survivor Helen Naslund, who won her appeal against a draconian 18-year prison sentence with the support of a compelling public support campaign. Learn more at http://womenwhochoosetolive.blogspot.com/2022/01/partial-victory-as-abuse-survivor-helen.html and 

2. Testifying before the House of Commons committee studying extradition, where we brought a picture of Michele Messina, who lost her life because of the Liberal government's failure to properly understand the gendered context of her case, in which she had fled with her children to protect them. The committee adopted our recommendation that the Justice Dept.'s "International Assistance Group" view all extradition requests through the lens of a Gender Based Analysis Plus approach (something that, in essentially signing her death warrant, then "Justice" Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould refused to do) . Learn more at http://womenwhochoosetolive.blogspot.com/2019/11/an-act-of-institutional-femicide.html

3. Raising awareness of and funds for celebrated Indigenous writer and activist Dawn Walker, who was criminalized for trying to protect herself and her child. Walker shone a spotlight on the built-in bias against Indigenous women in the police, prisons and courts, while she continues her fight in family courts which are similarly marinated is misogyny and anti-Indigenous racism. See our two evenings of readings in her support at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fssBno_1wMw&t=43s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2_ryWLnjBXk

4. Continuing to work on finding safe places for Afghan women's rights activists who have a Taliban target on their backs for having worked on Canadian women's empowerment projects. Some are living underground in third countries, trying to escape deportation back to certain death, as Canada refuses to process their applications after more than 2 years of waiting. Sadia is one of those Afghan women's rights defenders now living underground, surviving only because of our financial support. https://www.change.org/p/canada-must-save-at-risk-afghan-women-s-rights-advocate-sadia-issue-entry-permits-asap

To support our work please send an etransfer to tasc@web.ca or a cheque mailed to Homes not Bombs, 2583 Carling Ave., Unit M052, Ottawa, ON K2B 7H7.

 Thanks so much!

Women Who Choose to Live

tasc@web.ca