Protecting Women in Detention: Why Decriminalisation and Gender-Responsive Reform Cannot Wait

Ahead of the 70th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, United Nations human rights experts issued an urgent warning: women and girls in detention are being failed by justice systems that criminalise poverty, overuse pre-trial detention, and neglect gender-responsive safeguards.

The numbers are sobering. Globally, women account for roughly 7% of the prison population. Yet women’s incarceration has risen by nearly 60% since 2000, significantly outpacing the growth rate for men. Additionally, around 19,000 children currently live in prison with their mothers worldwide.

Criminalising Poverty

Across jurisdictions, many incarcerated women are detained for non-violent, poverty-linked offences: inability to pay fines, petty economic activities, minor drug offences, or informal work in unregulated markets.

In too many systems, poverty itself becomes grounds for punishment. For example, bail regimes that ignore the ability to pay effectively convert economic hardship into detention orders. Similarly, fines that are not designed to take real incomes into account become “poverty penalties.” When defendants default, which is usually not out of defiance but mere incapacity, detention or incarceration tends to follow.

In Nigeria, the distortion is amplified by the chronic overuse of pre-trial detention. More than two-thirds of inmates in correctional facilities are awaiting trial. For women, many of whom are primary caregivers, pre-trial detention does not simply interrupt life. It fractures families, displaces children, collapses fragile income streams, and deepens long-term vulnerability.

There is growing international recognition that criminalising homelessness, informal trading, or minor survival conduct does not reduce poverty, but rather, entrenches it. This gives birth to a carmul cycle as detention destabilises households in turn, by reducing employability, hardening stigma, and pushing already marginalised women deeper into cycles of exclusion.

The Standards Already Exist

International frameworks are not silent on these issues. The UN Bangkok Rules and the Nelson Mandela Rules provide detailed guidance on gender-sensitive detention, alternatives to custody, and the treatment of women prisoners.

The problem is the failure to operationalise these standards through measures like bail reform, diversion mechanisms, trauma-informed practice, and data-driven monitoring.

Pre-trial detention should be the exception, not the organising principle of justice administration. This can be achieved through structural shifts such as:

Reducing custodial reliance for non-violent offences
Designing bail systems tied to ability-to-pay principles
Creating diversion pathways for pregnant women and primary caregivers
Expanding non-custodial sentencing frameworks
Strengthening legal literacy and access to representation
Tracking women’s pre-trial timelines with transparent data

The Moment for Action

Women may represent a small proportion of the global prison population, but the sharp rise in their incarceration tells a deeper story about how justice systems respond to poverty, vulnerability, and survival conduct. When pre-trial detention becomes routine and bail systems ignore ability to pay, the result is not public safety but compounded inequality — fractured families, displaced children, and long-term economic exclusion for women who were already on the margins.

The standards for reform already exist. What is required now is the political will to reduce reliance on custody for non-violent offences, expand diversion for caregivers, and design bail and sentencing frameworks that are fair, proportionate, and data-driven. As the Commission on the Status of Women convenes, meaningful progress will be measured not by declarations, but by concrete reductions in unnecessary detention and demonstrable safeguards for women’s rights.