Eva Mendes and other celebrities encouraged InStyle readers to learn about the work of charity organizations around the world. Ms. Mendes selected EJI as a worthy cause and encouraged readers to take interest in our work.
Ms. Mendes learned about EJI through our work challenging death-in-prison sentences imposed on young children. “I had no idea that kids as young as 13 could be sentenced to life in prison,” Ms. Mendes wrote. “These people have been tossed aside, told they don’t matter. No human being should be thrown away.”
Pictured above with EJI client Marsha Colbey (center) and EJI attorney Sia Sanneh, Ms. Mendes expressed concern about the increased incarceration of women, which is up 640 percent over the past 20 years. Ms. Colbey was wrongly convicted of murder after her son was stillborn and spent years in Alabama’s Tutwiler Prison for Women before EJI won relief in her case. When women are imprisoned, Ms. Mendes said, “we punish not only them but their families. Sixty percent of women in jail are moms who have small children at home.”
Thanks to Ms. Mendes, a new audience of InStyle readers can learn about EJI in the December 2013 issue.
