Only one feminist organization initially supported faith-based arbitration with safeguards

Evidence

Only one feminist organization, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), initially supported the use of religious principles when they do not conflict with Canadian law. LEAF acknowledged that the use of arbitration was attractive because it was an alternate and cheaper form of dispute resolution. Further, they noted that some Muslim women were in favour of using Sharia. Believing that there was contemporary ‘negative stereotyping of Muslims,’ but seeking as well to heed women who were concerned about conservative religious influences, the organization recommended that a number of safeguards be built into the Arbitration Act to protect women from being coerced into arbitration. LEAF later reversed its position, announcing that it now believed that the government should prohibit the use of the Arbitration Act to protect women from being coerced into settling their disputes in accordance with religious law. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 356

Categorization

• QUESTION: LEAF’s reversal is unexplained beyond state refusal of safeguards — worth chasing what institutional/funding pressures drove a sophisticated feminist legal body to abandon its safeguard position.