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Neither the Civil Code of Québec or the Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms include measures to ensure the right to the safeguard of family life. Yet the family remains the bedrock of society. Simple omission or willful forgetting of the Legislator? In the first part, the author lays the groundwork for a theory of the family in the Civil Code. If one insists on the existence of a right to the safeguard of family life, we must ask: what is family? On the basis of a given meaning of “family”, with an emphasis marked for the content of the links uniting the members of the family, more than its single composition, the author notes, in a second part, the mechanisms condemning unlawful interference with family life. From this analysis of Québec law on violations of family life, the author concludes that the courts sanction direct attacks (alienation of affection) and indirect attacks (loss of consortium and servitium, and solatium doloris) to family life. They also condemn unlawful interference with the right to the safeguard of its dignity, honour and reputation with regards to the name, but also if there is an offense to a living family member or his remains. Therefore, a right to the safeguard of family life exists in Québec.

Keywords: Atteinte à la vie familiale, droit privé, droit de la personnalité, famille, responsabilité, victime directe, Interference with family life, private law, human right, family, liability, direct victim

AbstractFéminine Sexual Fluids and Social Relations in Central AfricaThis paper investigates a neglected area of anthropology : the féminine sexual fluids. The data proceed from research donc in Zaire and amongst the belgian african diaspora. In Africa two contrasting views are held about féminine sécrétions. A négative one prevails within certain groups, as shown by their provoking of vaginal dryness by végétative substances. This practice may increase the risk of STD's. Other groups do not hâve this négative attitude. Ail thèse facts are framed within african theories on the body and within the socio-economical stringencies. In conclusion proposais are made concerning educational policies.

AbstractMost studies on female drug addicts indicate that they are often separated from their children, either by a court order or by family agreement. This article examines the issue of the temporality of drug use confronted by the social time of maternity and the institutions that place children in foster homes. The data presented comes from a study on reporting and placement of children of drug-addicted mothers in France. It revealed a common thread in the lack of understanding of the various protagonists of placing children of drug-addicted mothers, being the time lag between the various players. Emergency initiatives, characteristic of today's social urgency to “do something” for this child exiting maternity, are superimposed over the urgency of the life of dependent mothers when maternity re-establishes time in their directional path. Pregnancy is often described as being particularly conducive to a change in direction, including other areas besides drugs.

Keywords: toxicomanie, placement des enfants, temporalités, famille toxicoman, devenir des enfants, décision judiciaire, drug addiction, placement of children, temporalities, drug-addicted family, children's fate, judicial order, toxicomanía, colocación de los hijos, temporalidades, familia toxicómana, futuro de los hijos, decisión judicial

AbstractThe problem of women's substance abuse and prostitution is twofold, extremely complex, and alarming. These women are at greater risk of becoming victims of violence and of becoming infected with HIV or another infection that can be sexually transmitted or transmitted by blood. Even though they tend to end up in a state of psychosocial crisis on a regular basis, they run into more obstacles preventing them from accessing appropriate treatment than other women who abuse substances. Purpose. This research aims to explore women's life experiences and their subjective point of view on the course of their substance abuse and prostitution, using their life stories, and including their perceptions on the interrelation between these two issues and their implications in their recovery efforts. Method. As part of a broader research project, 21 substance-abusing women, in treatment and presenting severe social maladjustment problems, were interviewed. This life-story type of interview was conducted 5 to 8 years following the reference treatment episode. A qualitative thematic analysis of the verbatim interviews was performed using the QSR NUD*IST software program. Results. Among the 21 participants interviewed, the results focus more specifically on the life stories of the 6 women who have a history of prostitution as well as substance abuse. Three trajectories have been identified: prostitution as a last resort to support substance abuse in the context of a course of early delinquency ; prostitution as a profession, leading to a deviant lifestyle ; and prostitution as a temporary and episodic phase. Observations regarding the experiences of these women pertaining to motherhood and services are highlighted. Clinical implications of the results are discussed.

Keywords: trajectoires, toxicomanie, prostitution, femmes, histoires de vie, méthodologies qualitatives, trajectories, addiction, prostitution, women, life story, qualitative methodologies, trayectorias, toxicomanía, prostitución, mujeres, historias de vida, metodologías cualitativas

With the advent of the Bill of Rights, making the offender less accessible, journalists are falling back more than ever on the victim to feed their daily tales of victimization.The author analyses the various forms this source of victimization takes; for some victims, they are generally crimes that are spectacular and violent, and are often perpetrated against the most susceptible and vulnerable victims.Each type of media (radio, dailies, weeklies, television) represents a particular way of adding to the suffering of the victim, and each has its way of “exploiting” the victim. The victim becomes a tool of the media, both commercially and ideologically, often with the connivance of the police, who also uses the victim for its purposes.The victim is portrayed in stereotype, according to the type of victimization reported and the offender implicated, creating a guilty or innocent victim, and literally depriving him of his own account of his victimization to make it an object of curiosity that sells well.Finally, the author analyzes how the police and the media, by interaction, can exploit the victim under the pretext of prevention or crime control and even through certain phenomena such as the reporting of crime waves promoting fear of crime. The article concludes that the media should have more respect for victims of crime.

In this article, the author examines the socio-legal relevance of the « battered woman syndrome » (BWS) in the cases of women who kill their violent partners in Canada. The legal recognition of domestic violence in these situations, in its historical context, is examined by focusing on the Supreme Court of Canada decision in the case of Angélique Lyn Lavallée in 1990. This landmark decison is used as pivotal in this discussion in order to shed light into the reasoning behind the subsequent legal decisions. The ideas proposed in this article are part of a more general exploration of the representations of femininity and their inscription in law. In discussing female conjugal homicide, the gendered nature of law and order, the pathologization of women, the « syndromisation» phenomenon and the médicalisation of violence, the author offers some insights in thinking legal strategies but more fundamentally in the social debate to continue.

Between 1867 and 1976, when the death penalty was abolished in Canada, sixteen women faced the death penalty in Québec for their crime. Five of them found guilty for murdering their husband. In a period where women had a specific role of spouse and mother, the murder of the husband was seen as the worst crime possible because it was seen as a transgression of their roles as women, wife and mother. This article examines the discourses of the judges and prosecutors in the trials of Québec women accused of killing their husbands. The authors tried to find common themes between these trials and clues that could explain why out of the five women executed in the recent history of Québec, four of them were for the same reason, because they had kill their husbands.