BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//132.216.98.100//NONSGML kigkonsult.se iCalcreator 2.20.4// BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20260527T082937EDT-9282nTv1Oc@132.216.98.100 DTSTAMP:20260527T122937Z DESCRIPTION:Click on the two small poster icons above to expand them and se e more of our speakers.\n\nPlease register for this event by chrlp.law [at ] mcgill.ca (emailing the Centre here).\n\nThe event is co-sponsored by th e Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and the Law Commission of Ca nada.\n\n\nCases of forced marriage (FM) in Canada occur across religions\ , ethnicities\, and races\, and can be traced back to Confederation. Their prevalence gained public attention in 2008 following several high-profile cases and advocacy work done by the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario. In 2015 Canada grouped FM\, polygamy\, and so-called “honour killings” und er the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act. The law added n ew criminal offences to the Criminal Code\, including forced marriage\, ma rriage under the age of 16\, as well as the offence of officiating or sole mnizing a marriage knowing that it is “in contravention of federal law.” A longside amendments that centre on criminal sanctions and immigration cont rol\, the Civil Marriage Act was also amended to set\, for the first time\ , a national minimum age for marriage (of 16 years) and a legal requiremen t of “free and enlightened consent of two persons to be the spouse of each other.”\n\nThe 2015 legislation was part of a series of laws that marked Canada’s move towards ‘crimigration’ similarly to other Global North state s. Not only that identifying the source of FM\, polygamy\, or femicide out side the country is factually incorrect\, it legitimizes an approach that treats them as “immigrants’ problems” and encourages policies that either focus on policing newcomers or turn a blind eye\, while the survivor’s int erests and needs are not at the centre of concern. In 2018\, under the Lib eral government\, the Act lost its divisive ‘Zero Tolerance’ title\, but o therwise the law remained intact.\n\nA decade later the public interest in the phenomena that the law purported to prevent has subsided. Meanwhile\, women and girls continue to be forced into marriage and femicide remains prevalent. The symposium brings together participants from community and w omen’s organizations\, government agencies\, and the academia to share cri tical perspectives and explore new directions and possibilities for addres sing gendered violence and preventing intergenerational harm – inspired by Canada’s history\, diverse legal traditions\, and unique pluralism in the domain of marriage laws.\n\n\nPreliminary Program:\n\n\n Gathering and Ref reshments - 8:30-9:00\n\n \n  \n \n\n Opening Remarks - 9:00-9:30\n\n \n Shauna Van Praagh\, President\, the Law Commission of Canada\n\n Nandini Ramanujam \, Director of Human Rights Programs\, CHRLP\n \n\n Crimigration\, Marginali zation\, and Resistance - 9:30-11:30\n\n \n Chair: Lynda Clarke\, Concordia University\, Department of Religions and Cultures\n\n Deepa Mattoo\, Chief Executive Officer of YWCA Toronto and Miriam Zucker\, 91 Law – A Decad e Since the Zero Tolerance Act: Recontextualizing Forced Marriage as a For m of Coercive Control and Reinvigorating Alternatives to Penal Approaches \n\n Dr. Salina Abji\, Sociologist & Research Consultant – “Honour”-Based V iolence and the Politics of Culture in Canada\n\n Hoori Hamboyan\, Senior A dvisor\, Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime – Access to Justice for Survivors of Gender-Based Violence\n\n Q & A\n \n\n Lunch Brea k - 11:30-12:30\n\n \n  \n \n\n Building Bridges and Models of Shared Responsi bility - 12:30-2:15\n\n \n **Content warning** Please note that this session includes some sensitive or triggering content\n\n Chair: Miriam Zucker\, S SHRC Post Doctoral Fellow\, 91 Faculty of Law\n\n 12:30-12:4 5 – Overview of resources for sexual violence response and support at the Student Wellness Hub by Gabrielle Petrucci\, Local Wellness Advisor - Law \n\n 12:30-1:00 – Rev. Dr. Anne Marie Hunter\, Senior Advisor\, Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domestic Violence and Elder Abuse – Where Faith and Safety Meet: Working with Faith and Spiritual Communities to Inc rease Safety and Access to Services\n\n 1:00-2:00 – Workshop on restorative & transformative justice models and DEI trauma-informed lawyering \n\n Lea d participants: \n\n Nneka MacGregor\, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Centre for Social Justice\n\n Kate Crozier\, Executive Directo r of Community Justice Initiatives\n\n Sabha Sajjad-Hazai\, Senior family l aw lawyer in private practice and former legal counsel and program lead fo r the Canadian Muslim Women’s Legal Centre Project\n \n\n Coffee Break - 2:1 5-2:30\n\n \n  \n \n\n Legal Pluralism and Dialogue: Beyond the Public/Private Divide - 2:30-4:15\n\n \n Chair: Michel Morin\, Université de Montréal Facu lty of Law\n\n Natasha Bakht\, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law – Religi ous Barriers\, Legal Pluralism\, and Equality: Rethinking State Responses to “Cultural Violence”\n\n Marie Manikis\, 91 Faculty of Law - Rethinking Prosecutorial Discretion and State Accountability in the Cri minal Legal Process\n\n Kirsten Anker\, 91 Faculty of Law – Indigenous peace-making: dispute resolution that confounds the public/priv ate divide\n\n Q & A\n \n\n Concluding Remarks - 4:15-4:30\n\n \n Miriam Zucker \, SSHRC Post Doctoral Fellow\, 91 Faculty of Law\n \n\n\n  \n\n\nSpeaker Biographies:\n\n\n Lynda Clarke\, Concordia University\, Depa rtment of Religions and Cultures\n\n \n Professor Lynda Clarke joined the De partment of Religions and Cultures at Concordia University after having he ld positions in the Department of Religion at Bard College and the Departm ent of Asian and Middle East Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He r research interests include Shiism\, law and gender\, and Islam in the We st\, in connection with which she has engaged with issues related to the u se of Muslim law in Canada.\n \n\n Miriam Zucker\, SSHRC Post Doctoral Fello w\, 91 Faculty of Law\n\n \n Dr. Miriam Zucker received her S JD from the University of Toronto and holds a Master of Laws degree (LLM\, Public and International Law specialization) and a Bachelor of Laws degre e (LLB). Her work on the intersections of gendered violence and state viol ence among Indigenous and racialized communities has been disseminated thr ough public presentations and publications in scholarly journals and has b een recognized with the Audre Rapoport Prize for Scholarship on Gender and Human Rights. Her current research\, supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)\, examines Canada’s legal r esponse to forced marriage under the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act (2015) and its impact on survivors\, individuals at risk\, a nd their families.\n \n\n Deepa Mattoo\, Chief Executive Officer of YWCA Tor onto\n\n \n Deepa Mattoo is an award-winning lawyer\, intersectional feminis t\, and social justice advocate who currently serves as the Chief Executiv e Officer of YWCA Toronto. With a career spanning over 28 years\, her work is defined by a commitment to advancing equity\, anti-oppression\, and th e rights of survivors of gender-based violence.\n \n\n Dr. Salina Abji\, Soc iologist & Research Consultant \n\n \n Salina Abji has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Toronto and a Master’s degree (MSt.) in Women’s Stu dies from Oxford University. Her SSHRC-funded postdoctoral fellowship at C arleton University examined Canada's immigration detention system\, focusi ng on experiences of detention and anti-border activism among GBV survivor s. She has published research on citizenship and migration\, gender-based violence\, and social justice activism in scholarly journals like Citizens hip Studies\, Signs\, Social Politics\, and Studies in Social Justice. As a research and evaluation consultant\, Salina has worked with national and provincial settlement and GBV organizations to build capacity for trauma- informed\, intersectional\, and culturally-responsive approaches to servic e provision. In 2021\, she was awarded a Trailblazers in Social Justice aw ard from the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario (SALCO) for her research and activism addressing structural racism and gender-based violence affect ing Ontario’s diverse South Asian communities.\n \n\n Hoori Hamboyan\, Senio r Advisor\, Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Crime\n\n \n H oori Hamboyan has a background in social work and law and is currently a s enior advisor at the Office of the Federal Ombudsperson for Victims of Cri me. She was the lead investigator for the office’s systemic investigation on the experiences of survivors of sexual violence and the criminal justic e system. Prior to working with the OFOVC\, she was chair of the federal i nterdepartmental working group on harmful practices for many years. Before joining the federal civil service\, she was a child protection social wor ker and worked in grassroots refugee rights advocacy and counselling with survivors of sexual violence and armed conflict.\n \n\n Rev. Dr. Anne Marie Hunter\, Senior Advisor\, Safe Havens Interfaith Partnership Against Domes tic Violence and Elder Abuse\n\n \n Anne Marie Hunter is an ordained United Methodist pastor who has worked extensively in the field of domestic viole nce and elder abuse since 1984. Hunter holds a Master of Divinity from Har vard Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion and Society from Drew Univers ity. Hunter has worked for two domestic violence service agencies and serv ed as the pastor of East Saugus United Methodist Church in Massachusetts. In 1991\, Hunter and a circle of friends founded Safe Havens Interfaith Pa rtnership Against Domestic Violence and Elder Abuse\, a religiously divers e nonprofit organization that works locally and nationally to strengthen p artnerships between diverse faith communities and frontline workers to pro vide support services to domestic and sexual violence survivors.\n \n\n Nnek a MacGregor\, Co-founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Centre for Social Justice\n\n \n Nneka MacGregor\, LL.B. is co-founder and Executive Di rector of the Women’s Centre for Social Justice (WomenatthecentrE). A Blac k Intersectional abolitionist feminist\, international speaker\, and Trans formative Accountability/Justice practitioner\, Nneka is an expert advisor y panel member of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accoun tability and founder of the Black Femicide Canada Council. Her research fo cuses on sexual violence\, and the intersection of strangulation\, Traumat ic Brain Injury and GBV. She received the 2019 PINK Concussions Award and the 2020 YWCA Women of Distinction Social Justice Award and one of two 202 4 Activists-in-Residence (AiR) at the University of Guelph\, in Ontario\, Canada.\n \n\n Kate Crozier\, Executive Director of Community Justice Initia tives (CJI)\n\n \n Prior to working at CJI\, Kate spent most of her career w orking with women impacted by violence. Along the way she had the opportun ity to work with criminalized youth\, unhoused women\, as well as men impa cted by sexual harm – all of which helped her understand how people whose needs are not met often become criminalized. Kate has spent 20 years worki ng to address the impacts of gender-based violence\, through a mix of femi nist anti-violence and restorative justice work. Both of these fields have fed her interest in tackling both personal and systemic issues through no n-carceral pathways. Through her different roles in the CJI Kate has come to highly value the de-professionalization of restorative justice work\, a nd she is proud of the CJI's legacy of equipping community members to faci litate mediations\, groups\, and circles.\n \n\n Sabha Sajjad-Hazai\, senior family law lawyer in private practice \n\n \n Sabha Sajjad-Hazai launched C anada’s first faith-based legal clinic pilot project supporting survivors of gender-based violence in diverse Muslim communities navigating the fami ly law system in Ontario. She has spent more than two decades advancing ac cess to justice initiatives focused on Muslim women’s legal rights in Cana da. She frequently speaks and teaches on the future of law\, exploring how technology and artificial intelligence can expand access to legal service s for underserved communities. She is a faculty member with The Advocates’ Society and a deputy judge in Central West Region Ontario. She also contr ibutes to professional development programming through the Law Society of Ontario and mentors emerging lawyers at Toronto Metropolitan University Li ncoln Alexander School of Law.\n \n\n Michel Morin\, Université de Montréal Faculty of Law\n\n \n Michel Morin is a Full Professor at the Faculty of Law of the Université de Montréal. His research focuses on Comparative Legal History of public and private law and the evolution of Aboriginal Peoples’ rights. His book\, co-authored with Arnaud Decroix and David Gilles 'Les tribunaux et l'arbitrage en Nouvelle-France et au Québec de 1740 à 1784' ( Courts and Arbitration in New France and Quebec\, 1740-1784)\, was awarded the Rodolphe Fournier 2013 prize (ex aequo) by the Fédération des société s d'histoire du Québec (Federation of Historical Societies of Quebec) and the Chamber of Notaries. In 2023\, Professor Morin was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.\n \n\n Natasha Bakht\, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law\n\n \n Natasha Bakht is a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa whose research focuses on the intersection of re ligious freedom and women’s equality. She has written extensively in the a rea of religious arbitration. Her research on the niqab analyzes the unwar ranted popular panic concerning Muslim women who cover their faces and exp lores systemic barriers to inclusion perpetuated by Canada’s legal and pol itical system. Her book In Your Face: Law Justice and Niqab-Wearing Women in Canada was listed in the Hill Times 100 Best Books of 2020 and received the 2020-2021 Huguenot Society of Canada Award. Prof Bakht is the Preside nt of the Canadian Association for the Study of Islam and Muslims. She is also an award-winning dancer and choreographer\, trained in Bharata Natyam and specializing in Indian contemporary dance.\n \n\n Marie Manikis\, McGil l University Faculty of Law\n\n \n Marie Manikis is an Associate Professor a nd William Dawson Chair at the Faculty of Law\, 91. She is also a Research Associate at the Centre for Criminology\, University of Ox ford and at the International Centre for Comparative Criminology\, Univers ity of Montreal. Her research is interdisciplinary and comparative and ana lyses prosecutorial discretion\, state accountability\, as well as victim and community participation across criminal legal processes. She is the au thor of Victims as Agents of State Accountability (Oxford University Press \, 2026) and has published in leading journals. Her award-winning scholars hip has been cited by several courts\, and she regularly advises governmen tal and non-governmental bodies in Canada and the United Kingdom.\n \n\n Kir sten Anker\, 91 Faculty of Law\n\n \n Kirsten Anker is Associ ate Professor at 91 Faculty of Law\, teaching property\, equity & trus ts\, legal theory and Aboriginal law/Indigenous legal traditions. She has published research on a legal pluralist framework for the co-existence of state and Indigenous legal orders\, the integration of Indigenous legal tr aditions in formal legal education\, and ecological jurisprudence.\n \n\n\n  \n DTSTART:20260608T123000Z DTEND:20260608T203000Z LOCATION:Room 101\, Chancellor Day Hall\, CA\, QC\, Montreal\, H3A 1W9\, 36 44 rue Peel SUMMARY:What Have We Learned a Decade Since the Zero Tolerance Act? Reimagi ning Law as a Shared Pursuit of Justice URL:/law/channels/event/what-have-we-learned-decade-ze ro-tolerance-act-reimagining-law-shared-pursuit-justice-372968 END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR