Female inmates are currently housed at the Baffin Correctional Centre in Iqaluit. However the territorial jail has experienced severe overcrowding for years. (CBC)

Nunavut's first correctional facility for women should be open by January, a territorial corrections official said Tuesday.

Construction has been underway in Iqaluit since building materials for the jail arrived on the first sealift shipment this summer, said Doug Strader, director of corrections with Nunavut's Justice Department.

Women in custody or serving light jail sentences are currently being placed at the Baffin Correctional Centre, but it has long been overcrowded with male inmates.

The new women's jail, which is being built beside the existing jail, will accommodate up to eight women in four rooms in a residential-type environment. Inmates will have to cook their own meals and look after themselves, Strader said.

Strader said the facility will have an "attack resistance" rating of medium, meaning the building can withstand some attempts to damage it.

"In other words, if a person tries to go through a wall, it would take a person a half-hour to penetrate a wall and go through it," Strader said Tuesday.

"Basically it's a little more secure than low-risk. Low-risk is very much like a house with just basic drywall on the walls. Medium-rated facilities have other materials in the walls to ensure that prevents a person from destroying the place."

The women's facility will have a nursing station, a section for receiving inmates, and a monitoring station for cameras to be installed outside the building.

Strader said women inmates will receive basic life skills training at the jail, and other programs will also be made available to them.

Nine staff members will initially work at the women's facility, but Strader said more staff may be added in the future.