Gender vulnerabilities, economic precariousness, and social and family pressures are among the challenges shared by women worldwide. Living with this unsettling reality can sometimes drive them to illegal activities as a last resort to make ends meet.

Many women experience various forms of violence throughout their lives, which accumulate over time. Researcher Samantha Jeffries observes that in Thailand, “incarcerated women tend to have been victims of violence from a younger age [than men], in multiple ways (e.g. childhood abuse or domestic violence) and more frequently. As a result, a history of violence seems to weigh more heavily on women’s journeys through the criminal justice system.” In Australia, the figures are undeniable: 85% of women in prison have somehow been abused, typically by men, in their lifetime. In the United Kingdom, over half of incarcerated women reported having suffered from domestic violence during their childhood, such as emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. In Canada, a large number of incarcerated women “come from disadvantaged backgrounds and have difficult, sometimes traumatic family lives”, highlight Ruth Gagnon and Anne-Céline Genevois of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Quebec.

Most women in prison come from impoverished backgrounds and had fewer educational opportunities than men. In Brazil, they often only completed primary education. A mere 14% of them have a high school diploma. In Nicaragua, Colombia, and Sierra Leone, the situation is similar: an AdvocAid study reveals that more than half of the women in prison who participated in the survey are illiterate.

Limited access to education hinders women’s access to the job market. Their unemployment rate is consistently higher than that of men, increasing the risk of economic and social marginalisation. The association Equis-Justicia para las Mujeres observes that in Mexico, although 60% of women work before entering prison, a large proportion of these jobs are informal and do not provide access to social benefits. “Many women have experienced deprivation in terms of access to food, housing, personal hygiene or recreational activities”, emphasises Alejandra Ramos Lezama, a member of the association.

This economic marginalisation can lead women to turn to illegal methods of ensuring survival. The absence of professional and social opportunities in Argentina pushes many women to commit drug-related crimes. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that most of these women are primary caregivers and breadwinners.

More than half of the women who end up in prison in Australia are mothers with at least one child. In Colombia, Claudia Cardona, director of the Mujeres Libres association, draws attention to the State’s role in marginalising mothers. The State labels them as bad mothers if they fail to support their child(ren), but it fails to provide them with social and economic rights or the opportunity for legal work. Faced with limited options, some turn to the illicit drug trade. They are subsequently convicted and incarcerated without any consideration for the underlying causes.

The burden of family responsibilities can be a driving force behind women’s imprisonment. According to the association Futur au Présent, a high number of Senegalese women imprisoned for drug trafficking are married to men who are also incarcerated for drug-related crimes. Once incarcerated, men often relay their drug trafficking knowledge and connections to their wives, enabling them to take over the business. In Thailand, women are often compelled to commit crimes by their manipulative and threatening partners.

In the state of Oklahoma in the United States, failure to protect children from abuse by other adults is considered a criminal offence. Women, and disproportionately Black women specifically, are targeted and held accountable under this law. However, the judgments against these mothers disregard the broader context of their lives. They are often victims being abused by the same person who is harming their child, typically their partner. Paradoxically, they often end up serving longer sentences than their abuser.

Reasons for the imprisonment of women vary around the world and include drug trafficking, theft, vagrancy, witchcraft, debt, begging and more. Most of these crimes have one thing in common: the absence of violence. For example, in England and Wales, nearly 72% of women who entered prison in 2020 were sentenced for non-violent offences.
Drug-related crimes remain a dominant global issue, accounting for the imprisonment of one in three women. In some Latin American and Asian countries, they even represent the primary reason for women’s incarceration, accounting for 60 to 80% of cases. However, this disparity is not observed among men. A 2020 report reveals that in countries like Brazil, Chile, and Peru, the rate of female imprisonment for drug offences is at least 30% higher than that of men.

A large number of countries in Latin America and Asia have implemented harsh drug laws in the war on drugs. In Mexico and the Philippines, pre-trial detention is now systematic for drug-related offences. When it is not mandatory, it is widely applied, as in Costa Rica, Ecuador, or India. Sentences can be extremely severe in relation to the harm caused, up to and including the death penalty. In Indonesia, five of the 11 women sentenced to death in 2021 were convicted for drug-related crimes. Meanwhile, in Thailand, 86% of women sentenced to death were convicted for drug-related crimes.

The roles women play in drug trafficking operations, such as selling or transporting drugs, often put them at greater risk of arrest than men. “Women are in a vulnerable position in the drug trafficking chain”, explains Alejandra Ramos Lezama, a member of Equis-Justicia para las Mujeres. “They are in the most exposed places, especially where drugs are sold. This position makes them more vulnerable to State intervention, which often targets low-level participants to inflate crime-fighting statistics in Mexico.” In Côte d’Ivoire, Paul Kouadio and Wenceslas Assouhou from Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture confirm: “Women sell small quantities of drugs on the market, like small links within much larger trafficking networks. But they’re on the front line. As it is difficult to trace the networks to the top, women are the ones who are arrested and prosecuted.”

Other minor offences, including begging, vagrancy, hawking and failing to pay debts, also lead to the incarceration of women. These offences were introduced by colonial systems to control populations deemed undesirable and poor. Rooted in the notion of social order, they were used by the colonial powers to maintain control and protect their economic interests. They still feature in the penal codes of many countries.

The primary targets are people in extremely precarious and marginal situations. Research conducted by the Africa Criminal Justice Reform points out that “petty offences disproportionately impact the poor and others who experience discrimination and social exclusion because of their status.” Homeless women in Kenya can be arrested for loitering or sleeping in a public space. According to a study published in 2022, a significant number of women incarcerated in this country have been convicted of alcohol-related crimes. Over 70% of women in Kenyan prisons are sentenced for a period ranging from one month to two years. In Sierra Leone, women are regularly arrested for loitering or failing to pay debts, with debt often being misinterpreted as fraudulent conversion or obtaining goods or money under false pretences. These relatively short prison sentences for minor offences contribute to overloading already saturated penal systems. The criminal code of the Central African Republic penalises certain practices of witchcraft and charlatanism, resulting in numerous convictions. People in vulnerable situations, particularly elderly and isolated women, are often at risk of arrest. In 2021, they represented 60% of the women at the Bimbo women’s prison in Bangui.

Even the fact of being a woman can be criminalised. The sexual and reproductive practices of women are subject to legal control, with some being criminalised in many countries. These laws reflect gender norms that women must conform to in order to avoid being criminalised. Colonialism has largely contributed to exporting these norms worldwide.

The control of women’s bodies is reflected in particular in the criminalisation of the sex trade. The selling of sexual services is prohibited, illegal, or regulated in most countries. Sex workers are consequently forced to operate underground, facing extreme vulnerability, daily violence, and the threat of incarceration.

In some cases, criminalisation is more insidious. In Senegal, sex work is regulated by a 1966 law, a legacy of colonial rule that remains unchanged to this day. There are several requirements for engaging in this activity, such as registering with the health and social services database and undergoing routine medical examinations. A health certificate must be obtained in order to work in this profession. It must be presented during a police check; the absence of the document may result in imprisonment. ”At the hearing, they are given warning penalties that can go up to 15 days, sometimes a month”, explain Ibrahima Niabaly and Kiné Gueye from the Futur au Présent association. “We have already had a case in Thiès of a woman sentenced to one day. Some sentences extend up to three months. Street soliciting and pimping are banned, effectively outlawing sex work in places like restaurants, bars, and beaches.” Despite the legal status of sex work, its regulation leads to the introduction of new offences, such as not having a health certificate on hand. Ibrahima Niabaly and Kiné Gueye point out that these women’s sexual conduct can easily be criminalised if it does not fit within the prescribed boundaries, especially considering the intense social stigma associated with such criminalisation.

Control over women’s bodies sometimes manifests in the criminalisation of abortion. For instance, in Morocco, abortion is illegal unless it threatens the woman’s life or health. In practice, this only concerns a few cases. Women who undergo or attempt an abortion can be sentenced to between six months and two years in prison and fined. This law is not without consequence. As an Amnesty International report points out, the threat of imprisonment forces women to seek out dangerous and unsafe abortions. The Moroccan Penal Code also governs sexual behaviour. Sexual relationships outside of marriage, including adultery, are forbidden and punishable by imprisonment: “Women [are] often punished more severely than men, both legally and socially. This significantly limits women’s ability to obtain sexual and reproductive health information and services, and exacerbates gender-based violence and discrimination.”

Certain laws are even more severe. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reports that in El Salvador, for example, abortion is criminalised in all circumstances, even in cases of medical emergency. When some pregnancies are complicated by conditions that result in loss, women may be imprisoned on suspicion of having had an abortion. A maximum sentence of 50 years’ imprisonment can be given for aggravated homicide or abortion.

Control over women’s sexual and reproductive health sometimes extends to broader surveillance of all aspects of their lives. The very existence of women can be considered an offence. In Afghanistan, since 2021, many measures have been implemented which have severely whittled away at women’s freedoms. They are no longer allowed to attend high school or university, travel unaccompanied, show their faces in public or take a walk in a park. The law on the “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” enacted in August 2024 radically escalated these discriminations by, inter alia, banning women from speaking in public. They are even prohibited from reciting the Koran audibly in the company of other women. Non-compliance with these provisions may result in the use of force and imprisonment by the authorities.

In Iran, women are obliged to conform to a strict dress code and must wear the hijab. In September 2022, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by the “morality police” for failing to comply with this code. She lapsed into a coma following the abuse she endured in police custody. She passed away three days later. Widespread protests erupted across the country in response, and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement was born. In 2023, on the eve of the anniversary of Mahsa’s death, the Iranian parliament passed a bill to increase prison sentences and fines for dress code violations. People who dress “inappropriately” now face up to ten years in prison. The authorities use surveillance cameras and facial recognition to monitor women. Penalties for not wearing the veil range from denial of access to university or banking services, to losing employment or one’s car. This system of perpetual surveillance criminalises women’s personal and public lives, treating them as second-rate citizens. For months now, women’s rights activists have been subjected to a campaign of harassment and repression.

Certain women experience intersecting forms of discrimination. When ethnic origin, sexual orientation, and gender identity intersect, individuals face increased marginalisation and criminalisation.

Human Dignity Trust reveals, in a report published in 2024, that one in five countries criminalise lesbian and bisexual people by banning homosexual practices. In Algeria, homosexuality is punishable with up to three years in prison. In Zambia, it can be as high as 14 years. As the Human Dignity Trust points out, even when LGBTQI+ women are not specifically targeted for their identity, they can be convicted of “public nuisance” or “indecent exposure”, provisions that have their roots in British colonialism. The latter offence originated in an 1885 British law criminalising sexual relations between men, and was subsequently exported and expanded to encompass sexual practices between women in former colonies.

The widespread social and economic exclusion and marginalisation of LGBTQI+ people generally also affects women specifically within the community, who face discrimination in education, employment, healthcare, and housing. Those who are transgender or gender non-conforming are especially targeted. Numerous laws prohibit them from expressing their gender, penalising individuals whose gender expression differs from the sex assigned to them at birth or outlawing cross-dressing. In Brunei, Human Dignity Trust reveals how trans people are harassed on the basis of a provision sanctioning “any man who dresses and presents himself as a woman” and “any woman who dresses and presents herself as a man”.

Other laws criminalise their activities, through the offence of vagrancy, which targets, for example, transgender sex workers. In general, transgender people often face violations of their fundamental rights and abuse from institutions and their representatives. Perceived as “dangerous”, they are more exposed to violence and arrest.

The overrepresentation of Indigenous women in prisons is a reflection of the ongoing effects of colonisation. In Canada, they represent half of all women in prison even though they constitute only 5% of the country’s female population. Researcher Cyndy Wylde, of the Anicinape and Atikamekw Nations, explains that the significance and political role that women held within their communities and social organisation were at odds with the colonists’ view of women. The colonists then implemented a targeted approach that explains the problem of mass incarceration today. The researcher discusses the creation and dissemination of fantastical representations: “The Canadian media and imagination have created an image of Indigenous women, either as Pocahontas, the beautiful, sexually available woman, or as the idle, highly marginalised, violent criminal.”

These harmful stereotypes continue to shape the experiences of Indigenous women, as they are more likely to be convicted of violent crimes, Cyndy Wylde points out, and many are also incarcerated for minor offences such as violating probation or failing to comply with court orders. “In cases of violent offences, the sentence is often harsher and includes a higher security level.”, she explains. “The majority of women who fall into this category are younger than non-Indigenous women and have experienced significantly more violence. They have often been brought up in childcare and, in some cases, have known only institutional life. Detention, therefore, comes at the end of a long road: it’s often said that if it had not been prison, it might have been death.”

Aboriginal women and girls represent one third of the female prison population in the state of Queensland in Australia, nearly eight times their proportion in the general population. Here too, they are more likely than non-Indigenous women to be convicted of minor, non-violent offences and to be incarcerated for short periods. For example, 11% of sentences handed down between 2005 and 2019 against Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls were for “disobeying a police officer’s instructions”. The criminal justice and prison systems fail to take into account the specificities of Indigenous culture and have a profound impact on the lives of these women and their communities.

In the Americas, the colonial legacy of slavery is perpetuated by the over-incarceration of Black women. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights noted in 2023 that Afro-descendant women face specific forms of discrimination due to the intersection of their gender and ethnicity. In Brazil, they make up 59% of the prison population. In the United States, the incarceration rate of Black women in 2022 was 1.6 times higher than that of white women.

Women often find themselves in precarious situations without the necessary resources to obtain quality legal assistance. They cannot rely as much on the experience of their peers to help them navigate the legal system, as there are fewer of them in detention. Fatna el Bouih, director of Relais Prison Société in Morocco, underlines this point: “Men share their experiences when they enter [prison]: they have a multitude of experiences of justice. They train each other and are better able to prepare for a hearing, which is different for women.“

Women are less likely to report violations of their rights due to multiple social, economic and cultural barriers. Several factors hinder them from speaking out: fear of reprisals, lack of family or community support, and the stigma surrounding certain complaints, such as domestic violence or discrimination. Often, economic barriers and limited access to legal aid reinforce their sense of powerlessness in the face of the justice system. Human Dignity Trust notes that, despite the many situations of violence experienced by lesbian and bisexual women, they rarely report them for fear of stigmatisation or reprisals. The organisation cites a particularly telling case: “In 2021, it was reported that a lesbian in Tunisia was homophobically abused by a police officer. When she reported this abuse at the local police station, she was arrested herself and charged with insulting a police officer, drunkenness, and causing embarrassment and disruption. She was sentenced to six months’ detention and was further harassed by the police while in custody.”

The judicial system is not free of gender stereotypes — quite the contrary. In fact, women are “often victimised sexually or physically when they come into contact with the criminal justice system, and [are] forced to suffer in silence to reduce the chances of re-victimisation, incarceration, or stigma,” as indicated by the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists. In addition, representations of gender are used in a moralising way during hearings. “We have attended hearings where judges very clearly told women, ‘You should be elsewhere, you should be taking care of your children’”, recounts Amaranta Viridiana of the Equis-Justicia para las Mujeres association in Mexico. Fatna el Bouih makes the same observation regarding the situation in Morocco: “Whether the judge is a man or a woman, one often observes a discriminatory view of women. They arrive and the judgment has essentially already been made.” She also mentions the impact of illiteracy and women’s lack of knowledge of their rights: “We have worked with lawyers who have told us that many women do not understand what is happening during the trial; they do not know when the next hearings are, if there are any, or if and when they can appeal.”

The use of pre-trial detention is, in some countries, more common for women than for men. This is the case in Costa Rica, where the pre-trial detention rate is 56.9% for women and 18.9% for men. This situation can also be observed in Bolivia, Argentina, Colombia and Mexico.

When it comes to incarceration, women find themselves immersed in an environment that has not been designed for them, and is not adapted to their experiences or needs.

A woman’s incarceration has devastating consequences for her, her loved ones and the community. In Côte d’Ivoire, the Action by Christians for the Abolition of Torture (ACAT) reports that 79% of female prisoners are mothers. In an interview, Paul Kouadio and Wenceslas Assouhou explain that in Côte d’Ivoire, women are often the pillars of the family: “They oversee their children’s education and ensure the household’s economic survival. (…) In most cases, children placed with their fathers are left on their own. Fathers often take little interest in their children’s education or attendance. Incarcerating a woman, particularly a mother, is therefore extremely detrimental, not only to her but also to the survival of the household. Judges seem to ignore this consideration when placing mothers behind bars. Their children are left without anyone to watch over them.” In Ireland, the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) mentions the long-term impact of policies that encourage the imprisonment of mothers. “In many cases, children already face material hardship and social disadvantage, and the maternal imprisonment only exacerbates the situation“, notes Ashling Tobin of the IPRT. “They often already face the same issues that brought mothers into conflict with the law, including poverty, family breakdown, violence, and substance misuse. Deep trauma often arises from being separated from their mother, with feelings of stigmatisation, isolation, and confounding grief.“.

Last but not least, the time spent in detention is particularly damaging for women. They are much more stigmatised than men and find themselves more isolated when they leave.

Some movements are trying to push the authorities to move the cursor. Among them, the member organisations of the Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status have for several years been calling for the repeal of laws targeting people because of their poverty, status and/or activism. In 2017, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted the Principles on the Depenalisation of Petty Offences in Africa, recognising that it is “a major human rights issue”. In this vein, in 2017, the High Court of Malawi declared the rogue and vagabond offence unconstitutional. This provision had originally been introduced by the British colonists, through the Vagrancy Act of 1824. In 2022, the Constitutional Court of Uganda declared the country’s vagrancy laws unconstitutional.

Without going as far as decriminalisation, the adoption of certain laws also makes it possible to envisage an alternative to incarceration, particularly for women convicted of minor offences. In Morocco, a law on alternative sentences was passed in June 2024, extending the range of people who can benefit from alternatives to detention.

In Mexico an amnesty law was passed in 2020, against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The law allows the release of people tried for minor offences, such as non-violent theft and “health offences”, which include drug offences or abortion, in states where abortion is illegal. The law also targets people from Indigenous communities who may not have benefited from adequate legal defence at the time of their trial. The law was conceived both as a response to prison overcrowding and as a form of social reparation for marginalised populations. For Amaranta Viridiana of the association Equis-Justicia para las Mujeres, “This law is very important because it is the first time that the State has recognised that there are people who are deprived of their freedom because of structural inequality. In symbolic terms, this is the first recognition that systematic violence against certain populations has led them to prison. [The law] highlighted the fact that many people, and this is not just discursive, were in prison for the simple fact of being poor, Indigenous, women or wanting to have control over their own bodies.”

Nearly 126 women have benefited from this law over the past four years. It evolved in June 2024: the President is now authorised to pardon people, without intermediary, regardless of the offence committed.

In Colombia, the public utility law (Ley de Utilidad Pública), passed in 2023, seeks to offer an alternative for female “heads of household” who have committed an offence due to their marginal circumstances. Those serving prison sentences for non-violent offences such as theft or certain drug-related offences can, under certain conditions, commute their sentences to community service work. This law recognises “the differential conditions of marginalisation suffered by women in prison, as well as the importance of their active role as head of the family“ and ensures that “this role is not interrupted by long sentences”.

However, Claudia Cardona, a member of the Mujeres Libres association, believes that in practice it is difficult for women to prove their vulnerability at the time of the incident, especially when this is done retrospectively. She regrets that judges put up so many obstacles to women’s liberation. Last July, one year after the law’s implementation, 51 women had been released from prison, whereas around 6,472 would be eligible. Her association organises discussion and awareness-raising workshops for judges, to help them better understand the bottlenecks at work. A study was also published in 2024 on the issues facing magistrates. According to Claudia Cardona, even though this law recognises structural gender issues, there is still a long way to go, and she calls for “a penal policy that takes into account gender, the circumstances of the crime and the specific needs of women”. The law enjoys a certain degree of international visibility, notably among political leaders in Argentina and Mexico. The Mujeres Libres association explains that it shares its knowledge and learning in the region and internationally via a network of formerly incarcerated women.

The people interviewed for this article were adamant that more specific research is needed to better understand and identify the vulnerabilities that lead women to be incarcerated for minor offences. This is essential in order to change practices and reduce bias. Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls are currently working together to identify key areas for reform in relation to the criminalisation of women around the world on the basis of their poverty and status.¹ Sabrina Mahtani, founder of Women Beyond Walls, mentions the difficulties of developing such a study given the lack of data on women’s incarceration. “One of our recommendations is to develop research on this issue. We need more data and especially more participatory research“, she explains. Unsurprisingly, the lack of funding explains the missing pieces when it comes to research, a point that Women Beyond Walls has been highlighting for years. Their findings are clear: over 70% of organisations working with women in prison worldwide say that they receive no funding from feminist or women’s rights foundations.

Things are changing, but slowly. Everywhere, organisations are coming together to fight against faulty and discriminatory justice systems, and are uniting to raise a common voice. “All the great battles have been fought in teams. Working alone does not work”*, points out Fatna el Bouih.