BC settles lawsuit with aboriginal woman for 3½ years in solitary confinement

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association says it has resolved a lawsuit against the government of Canada filed on behalf of a 26-year-old aboriginal woman from Saskatchewan who was held in solitary confinement in a federal prison for more than 3½ years.

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The lawsuit alleged that while in solitary confinement, also known as segregation, Worm spent 23 hours a day confined to her cell, deprived of meaningful human contact, for months at a time.

BCCLA litigation director Grace Pastine said at the time that seven women have been on the management protocol since it was first created in 2005, and all the women on the protocol at that time were aboriginal.

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Worm said she sued Corrections Canada to help herself and others facing the punishment of the two-metre by three-metre room known as "the hole."

"It's hard for me to be here today, hard for me to talk about what happened to me in prison," Worm said Wednesday morning in Vancouver.

"Solitary confinement does one thing. It breaks a person's will to live. Being locked up like that you feel like you're losing your mind. The only contact with another human is through a food slot. Days turn into nights and into days and you don't know if you'll ever get out."

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"Prison was a hard place. There was a lot of violence. The more time I spent in solitary confinement the more trouble I had in prison. They told me solitary confinement would help me but it made me even worse."

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