Minister says violence upended women’s jail beading venture

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/05/2023 (1182 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s justice minister said a beadwork endeavour by a group of inmates at the Women’s Correctional Centre, who were able to sell their creations and earn cash, had devolved into incidents of violence.

“It had become, what is described to me, as physical assault, intimidation, and bullying because of the economy that had been set up around this and the financial gains the individuals were involved with,” said Kelvin Goertzen Tuesday, one day after the NDP raised the issue.

Women would create the crafts and mail them to a third party, who would sell the pieces. They could spend the cash on items from the jail canteen.

Instead of allowing the items to be sold, the jail will roll out a beadwork program in which all inmates can participate.

“This is women’s corrections, it’s not Amazon,” Goertzen said.

“We’re not running a shipping centre out of there. We need to ensure there is protection for those who are in the facility. It became something other than it was started to because of, unfortunately, the unique things that happen there.”

On Monday, NDP MLA Nahanni Fontaine brought up the issue and asked that the decision be reversed, saying “beading is an act of resistance to colonization.”

“Beading is medicine to our women. It offers healing and empowerment and pride. Beading is connection to those matriarchs who came before us.

“You can’t tell women, ‘You better get yourself together and heal yourself to be better outside’, and then take something like this away.”

On Tuesday, after the minister explained the reason for replacing the ad hoc endeavour with a jail-wide program, Fontaine didn’t respond to a Free Press request for comment.

Sandra Burling, co-founder of Women Helping Women Beadwork, which helps women who are incarcerated and released from jail, sell their beaded creations, said she would not comment on allegations of violence in the jail connected to the beadwork. She said she hadn’t heard anything about it.

Burling said she will continue to help women sell their beadwork.

“There are nine to 10 girls I can still sell their beadwork because they have been released. And, when others are released, I will sell their work. I will wait until they are out.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca