‘Morality’ laws, discrimination and the criminalisation of life-sustaining activities are behind a significant increase in the number of women in prison, says a first-of-its-kind report co-published by Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls. 

While the majority – 94 per cent – of those in prison are men, the number of women behind bars has increased globally by 57 per cent since 2000. In comparison, there’s been a 22 per cent increase in the male prison population. 

The report, which was published in the spring, says poverty is a ‘root cause’ of women’s imprisonment, with many convicted of minor crimes driven by economic necessity. These crimes include petty theft, vagrancy, ‘hawking’ – the selling of food or items in public spaces – begging and homelessness. Despite much of the relevant legislation being gender-neutral, women are overrepresented among the poor and so face disproportionate criminalisation. 

In some countries, women and girls are criminalised for behaviours seen to violate expected gender norms, such as not wearing ‘appropriate’ dress, travelling without a male escort or engaging in extramarital sexual acts. 

In Iran, drones and phone apps are being utilised to intensify surveillance on women in order to enforce mandatory hijab laws. One woman, for example, reportedly received an SMS message containing her car registration plate and the exact time and place she had been recorded as being without a proper head covering. 

In Afghanistan, a new law passed in 2024 under the Taliban – the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) – ‘extends the already severe and omnipresent restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls’, says Ewelina Ochab, a programme lawyer at the IBA’s Human Rights Institute. 

Article 13 of the PVPV law mandates that ‘a woman is required to cover her entire body’ and should conceal her voice when in public. Assessing the first six months following the passage of the law, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan documented widespread detentions by PVPV enforcers. 

In Thailand, sex work is criminalised under the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act 1996, leading to many vulnerable women being stuck in cycles of arrest, fines and reoffending, says M Ravi, an officer of the IBA Human Rights Law Committee. The report by Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls notes that sex workers in Thailand frequently cite police raids as their greatest fear, with anti-trafficking operations often resulting in forced detention and the public dissemination of raid images.

But the co-authors of the report also highlight positive incremental steps being taken worldwide to address the impact of these harmful laws. In Sierra Leone, for example, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice found the country’s loitering laws to be discriminatory towards people in poverty and vulnerable situations. In particular, the laws had been frequently misused by the police to target sex workers. Further to this, in December, Belgium became the first country to grant sex workers full employment rights.

In the UK, the government’s new Women’s Justice Board has begun working on plans to send fewer women to prison. The group will publish a strategy later in 2025, looking at ways to cut reoffending. The Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, launched the Board and has highlighted that many women sentenced to prison are ‘victims themselves, and over half are mothers.’

While Smith regards the Board’s establishment as a positive step, providing an encouraging focus on gender-specific justice, she adds that to have a ‘real impact’ it requires ‘proper funding, political backing and influence across departments – not just within criminal justice, but also housing, health and social care.’  

While in the criminal justice system, women often experience physical abuse, sexual exploitation and psychological problems. In the UK, self-harm in women’s prisons is 8.5 times higher than in men’s, for instance, according to a February report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons.

In Afghanistan, there have been reports of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, overcrowded cells and women being denied access to legal representation, says Ochab. ‘We hear about the use of sexual violence en masse, and the use of forced abortions where these rapes result in pregnancies’, she says.

Despite the scale of the issue, and the incremental measures being taken to address women’s imprisonment in some jurisdictions, the report’s co-authors say women’s detention is largely overlooked in policy-making and high-level forums on women’s rights. ‘In the rare instances where imprisoned women are considered in policy conversations’, says the report, ‘they are often reduced to their caregiving roles, marginalising those who do not fit this stereotype and exposing them to harsher penalties, stigma, and policy neglect, which exacerbates their vulnerabilities and makes their struggles invisible.’ 

The report makes nineteen specific recommendations, including calling for the decriminalisation of ‘status’ offences including crimes of ‘honour’ or ‘morality’ and the reform of drug laws to address disproportionate impact on women. The co-authors also recommend decriminalising the act of seeking or carrying out an abortion. Smith says the recommendations are ‘comprehensive’ but ‘could place more emphasis on the need for trauma-informed alternatives to imprisonment.’ 

Ravi says the report’s emphasis on the lived experiences of formerly incarcerated women and its call for immediate decriminalisation of discriminatory laws brings attention to the structural and intersectional nature of the issue. ‘All stakeholders in criminal justice reform, including the law associations in Southeast Asia, should carefully study this report and adopt it in their policy briefs’, he says. ‘A fundamental shift is needed from punitive to socio-economic responses,’ which understand ‘poverty as a structural issue and not a crime,’ adds Ravi.

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