Scholar Says Legal System Failed Murdered Woman

Scholar Says Legal System Failed Murdered Woman

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 12:06

Lessons of the past can be relevant today, according to author and legal scholar Constance Backhouse.

She was in Regina recently, presenting a lecture about Rose Marie Roper.

Roper was a 17-year-old Aboriginal woman sexually assaulted and killed by three white men 40 years ago in small town in British Columbia.

Backhouse says both the legal system and society failed Roper.

“I think there was both sexism and racism operating. It made her a target for sexual assault, and neither the police, nor the lawyers, nor the judges provided any kind of proper response to this case. And my feeling is that we have not moved a great distance in the last 40 years, and this continues to happen,” she says.

Backhouse is known for her feminist research and publications on sex discrimination and the legal history of gender and race in Canada.

More on the Roper case can be found in Backhouse’s book, “Carnal Crimes: Sexual Assault Law in Canada, 1900-1975”.