Bio:
Amanda Dale is the Executive Director of the Barbra Schlifer Clinic in Toronto, which offers legal representation, professional counseling, and multilingual interpretation to 4000 women a year who have experienced violence. Amanda started her work in women’s anti-violence work as a shelter worker in Toronto the 1980s, and has since worked as a counselor, group worker, manager, directo,r and executive directo with women’s groups in Toronto, across Canada (including living for eight months in Nunavut, leading the development of pan-territorial support for shelters), Sudan, and Ghana. Amanda was part of the steering committee of the No Religious Arbitration Committee in Ontario, led the YWCA’s participation in both the advocacy that led to reform to the Ontario Arbitration Act and the follow-up public legal education aimed at marginalized women, and was a consultant to the so-called Jane Doe Audit with the Auditor general of the City of Toronto and then with the Toronto Police Services Board to oversee the implementation of the two sets of audit recommendations on how police should respond to the crime of sexual assault. In addition to her position with the Schlifer Clinic, she is on the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Inter Pares, a feminist global social justice organization active in food security, violence against women prevention, and access to democratic rights, and the board of directors of the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto. Amanda holds a Masters in Social and Political Thought from the University of Sussex (UK), a Post-Graduate Certificate from The Humber College School for Writers, an honours BA from the University of Toronto, Joint Specialist in Women’s Studies and Political Science, and recently finished first in a Masters of International Human Rights Law from Oxford University.
Title of paper:
'Religious Arbitration, the NS case, and Women's Equality'