GENEVA - UN human rights experts* today urged Member States to take action to strengthen protections for women and girls in criminal justice systems, warning that access to justice, safety and dignity for women deprived of their liberty remains gravely inadequate ahead of the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70).
"As the principal global intergovernmental forum on gender equality, CSW70 presents an important opportunity to renew attention to the situation of women and girls who are criminalised, detained or imprisoned," the experts said.
Globally, more than 740,000 women and girls are estimated to be held in detention, representing around 7 per cent of the world's prison population. Since 2000, women's imprisonment has increased by 60 per cent - nearly three times the rate for men. Around 19,000 children live in prison with their mothers.
"Most women are detained for non-violent offences linked to poverty, inability to pay fines or bail, and punitive drug policies," the experts said." "Criminalising women for survival, caregiving responsibilities and socio-economic vulnerability fails to address root causes and protection needs".
Women in detention face heightened risks of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence, inadequate healthcare, overcrowding, and other conditions that may amount to ill-treatment or torture - risks that are even more acute in conflict and fragile settings. Although the UN Bangkok Rules and the Havana Rules provide instructive frameworks for appropriate standards of treatment for incarcerated women and girls, implementation remains inconsistent.
The experts urged States to use CSW70 to adopt ambitious, concrete commitments that tackle the root causes of women's criminalisation, including poverty, racial and ethnic marginalisation, inequalities rooted in colonial-era harms and discriminatory social norms.
They called for better data and participatory research involving interviewing current and formerly incarcerated women; assessing the impacts of criminal laws including drug policies on women and girls; sustained funding for community-based, women-led organisations that support women and girls at every stage of the justice system; and better operationalisation of special safeguards for girls who are at risk of or are in conflict with the law, ensuring that all decisions affecting girls are guided by their best interests as children, their safety, dignity, and stages of development.
"Crucially, States need to reduce reliance on imprisonment as the default for minor, non-violent offences and prioritise and expand suitable community-based alternatives to detention, including for women and girls."
"At the same time, where there are no suitable alternatives, keeping women safe in prison and other detention facilities must be a core priority," the experts said, calling for sex- and gender-responsive, trauma-informed prison policies aligned with the Bangkok Rules and Mandela Rules.
"We remind all States that all women in detention have a right to sex/gender- and age-appropriate conditions of detention, protection from all forms of violence and abuse, regular family contact, rehabilitation including education and vocational training, healthcare equivalent to those in the community (including mental, sexual and reproductive health services), as well as effective access to legal assistance and confidential complaint mechanisms."
The experts stressed that progress on this agenda is essential to advance both SDG 5 on gender equality and SDG 16 on justice and strong institutions.
"CSW70 can and should become a turning point, ensuring that women and girls in contact with criminal justice systems are made visible, protected and heard in global gender policy," the experts said.
