With funding from The Law Foundation of Ontario NAWL has developed A Women’s Guide to Money,  Relationships and the Law in Ontario. This online tool responds to the need of young women to know more about their economic rights when entering and leaving common law relationships or marriages and the difference between the two. The guide includes information about the different legal definitions of spouse in Ontario,  spousal and child support, economic abuse, the division of property, and has tools to help women write their own cohabitation or separation agreements.

Click here for more information and to dowload the guide

NAWL celebrates Mother’s Day by bringing a message to Parliament Hill on behalf of women across the country.

Women’s reproductive rights, including the right to abortion, are increasingly under attack in North America. In 2006, the South Dakota Legislature voted a law that would make it a crime for doctors to perform an abortion unless it was necessary to save a woman's life. The law makes no exception for cases of rape or incest. 

Closer to home, several members of the Harper Conservative minority government and Cabinet are a part of the anti-choice movement. NAWL remains vigilant to protect and reinforce women’s reproductive rights in Québec and Canada.

In 2003, the Ontario Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announced that it would be offering a “Sharia Court” to Ontario Muslims. The “Sharia Court” would conduct binding arbitrations according to Islamic law.

Women remain the primary caregivers of children. Women are more likely to abandon professional and economic benefits in order to facilitate that relationship. When they separate or divorce, women are far more likely to end up in poverty than their former male partners. Women are often victims of spousal violence or abuse. Yet the legal system often ignores this reality. And without access to Legal Aid, women are unable to assert the rights that they do have.

On Indian reserves, provincial law that usually applies to matrimonial property in case of separation or divorce does not apply. When women separate or divorce, they are left without the protection of the law. NAWL’s working group on Aboriginal Women’s Rights has urged the government to take action to remedy the situation.

Not allowing lesbians to marry sends the message that lesbian relationships are not valuable or worthy of support. Lesbians want the ability to marry to obtain the benefits of marriage and also to change that historical message of exclusion. They also want to be recognized as mothers and co-parents.