The “groundbreaking” inclusion of female incarceration in a global agreement on justice for women and girls adopted at the UN this week has been hailed by campaigners as an opportunity to bring about change for hundreds of thousands of women in prison around the world. The agreed conclusions of the 70th session...

At the core of any democracy lies a delicate balance: the responsibility of the state to ensure security and the equally important duty to protect basic freedoms, the right to speak, organise and take part in public life. A recent decision by a Delhi court on 24 March 2026 brings...

From adolescent girls confronting online violence to older women navigating barriers to inheritance and property rights, women across generations continue to face obstacles in accessing justice. At the 70th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), they came together to demand change. At the annual ‘CSW Youth...

Amnesty International: Saturday 28 March marks seven years since Amara Krumak, Abdalla Bari and Kone Tiemoko Abdul Kader – known as the El Hiblu 3 – were arrested in Malta for opposing their forced return to Libya, where they would be at risk of persecution, torture and other serious human...

Amnesty International: Reacting to the sentencing of nightclub owner Tatiana Zorina to four years in a penal colony for purportedly organizing the “extremist activity” of a non-existent “international LGBT movement” at her venue, Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director, said: “Tatiana Zorina’s sentencing is a stark...

The Fines and Fees Justice Center (FFJC): In January, the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) sponsored the Philippines’ Second National Decongestion Summit in Manila to generate concrete plans to address the severe overcrowding of the country’s jails and prisons as the Philippines re-writes its criminal code for the first...

The Taliban has endorsed a new Criminal Procedure Regulation of the Courts, which Amnesty International warns will deepen discrimination and violence against women and minority groups. The regulation imposes harsh and vague punishments, criminalizing domestic violence only when women suffer visible injuries, and restricting women’s freedom of movement by penalizing...

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya): The Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ Kenya) expresses its grave concern and strongly condemns the recent detention and subsequent expulsion of Mr Brian Kagoro, a renowned Pan-Africanist, Zimbabwean lawyer and human rights defender, who also serves as the Africa Director...

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned of the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan, emphasizing that women and girls have effectively been barred from public life, higher education, and many employment opportunities, with widespread discrimination affecting their civil liberties, healthcare services, and freedom of expression. He...

Women Beyond Walls: A new global mapping exercise to identify organisations working with and for women affected by the criminal legal system. The aim is to create the first open-source global map of civil society organisations supporting women who have been arrested, are on trial, incarcerated, or released, as well as their...

Amnesty International: Bill 6 prohibits “the public consumption of illegal substances” in public spaces, with the government’s stated goal being the “clearing of encampments by enhancing penalties.” In practice, the bill widens police discretion. It authorizes warrantless arrests and removals from public space based on a broad and subjective “reasonable grounds” standard, increasing the likelihood of...

Does your community care about children? This deceptively simple question carries profound moral, social, and civic weight. Across the United States, children are too often treated not as developing citizens deserving care and opportunity, but as problems to be managed. Systems meant to safeguard youth—juvenile justice, labor laws, immigration enforcement,...

 Institute of Commonwealth Studies and International Commission of Jurists: On 3 March 2026, the Commonwealth Secretariat (ComSec), the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies (ICwS) – together with the Permanent Mission of Fiji to the UN in Geneva – held a side event on the margins of the on-going 61st session of...

Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls: The seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 9 to 19 March 2026. The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to...

Amnesty International: Brazil faces a decisive test of its willingness to confront impunity for attacks against human rights defenders in the coming weeks, said Amnesty International amid the beginning of the trials over the murders of Marielle Franco and Anderson Gomes, in the Federal Supreme Court, and Maria Bernadete Pacífico,...

The undersigned organisations strongly condemn the arbitrary arrest and subsequent conviction of Pakistani human rights lawyers Imaan Zainab Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha and call for their immediate release and measures to ensure the conviction is set aside. On 24 January, a District and Sessions Court in Islamabad sentenced the...

(London, February 13, 2026): Nepal’s interim government led by Prime Minister Sushila Karki should release the Commission of Inquiry report into deadly violence during “Gen Z” protests of September 2025, as well as all the previous judge-led inquiry reports on human rights violations and abuses which were not published by...

Statement submitted by Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice and Penal Reform International, non-governmental organisations in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council Penal Reform International (PRI): The statement, submitted by the Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice and Penal Reform International on behalf of the Women in Prison Network, notes the...

Prison Insider: The Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation (Centro Federal de Readaptación Social , CEFERESO) No. 16, in the state of Morelos, is Mexico's only federal prison for women. In operation since 2016 as a maximum-security facility, it held nearly 1,000 women in 2023. Known as "the cemetery of the living ," this institution is...

Proposed Ordinance Mirrors a Growing National Trend of Punishing Unhoused People Rather Than Investing in Housing Solutions Invisible People: Advocates are speaking out against a proposed ordinance in East Lansing, Michigan, that would criminalize certain acts associated with homelessness. In December, East Lansing’s city council introduced an ordinance that would...

In its upcoming report, the Expert Mechanism will examine systemic racism against Africans and people of African descent in the enforcement of drug laws and policies, with a view to advance racial justice and equality in the context of law enforcement globally in accordance with Human Rights Council resolution 47/21. The...

In its resolution 60/26, adopted on 8 October 2025, the Human Rights Council requested OHCHR to prepare a report, in consultation with Member States, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other relevant United Nations agencies, civil society and other relevant stakeholders, on “Human rights challenges in addressing...

Rose a 32-year-old sex worker who was arrested in a police raid was a bundle of nerves when advocate Sunita Salsingikar first met her in a prison in Maharashtra. “She was a simple, quiet woman... she had no idea why she had been arrested,” recalled Salsingikar. That was three years...

The ACHPR, through Resolution ACHPR/Res.594 (LXXX) 2024, mandated the development of a Joint Analytical Study to examine the challenges that hinder effective litigation of women’s and girls’ rights before the AU’s human rights organs—the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR), the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and...

Women Beyond Walls: 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...

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) deplores the conviction of ten lawyers, including Ramazan Demir, a member of the defence team of  Selahattin Demirtaş, who remains in detention despite binding ECtHR judgments, and the prison sentences imposed on them following a mass trial before the İstanbul 14 Heavy Penal Court. Their...

The International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) strongly condemns the Iranian authorities’ egregious use of widespread, excessive and lethal force to suppress ongoing anti-government demonstrations, in violation of the protestors’ rights to life, peaceful assembly and freedom of expression. Since nationwide protests–calling for changes to the country’s governance in response to...

Invisible People: The term “Criminalization of Homelessness” refers to a range of laws and ordinances that punish people simply for being homeless. According to Housing Not Handcuffs, a multi-organization campaign to address this issue, criminalization of homelessness occurs when: “…Law enforcement threatens or punishes homeless people for doing things in public that...

The Centre for Human Rights Education Advice and Assistance (CHREAA): Across Malawi, the poor are routinely jailed for failing to pay fines they cannot afford, while wealthier defendants convicted of the same offences walk free, a groundbreaking legal study has found. By Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi (CIJM) In a...

Institute of Commonwealth Studies: Today in Fiji, Commonwealth Law Ministers noted in their 2026 Outcome Statement satisfaction with the production of the Practitioners’ Guide on a Human Rights-Based Approach to Criminal Law, Including the Decriminalisation of Conduct Associated with Poverty and Status (Guide), produced in partnership with the Commonwealth Secretariat,...

VOCAL Africa calls for an immediate review and amendment of all counter-terror provisions that can be misapplied against citizens exercising their constitutional freedoms.A democratic nation cannot criminalise dissent. Counter-terrorism must not become a cover for repression. Kenya’s anti-terrorism framework was created to protect the public from extremist threats. Recent cases,...

Orange County, CA – An Orange County Superior Court judge has enjoined Riverside County, the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, and Sheriff Chad Bianco, stopping them from jailing people arrested on lower-level charges before they have a court hearing simply because they cannot pay money bail. “I am happy that because of this case,...

Amnesty International: Reacting to the Russian Ministry of Justice’s move to seek to ban as “extremist” the leading LGBTI organizations in Russia – Russian LGBT Network and the Saint Petersburg-based group Vykhod (Coming Out) – Marie Struthers, Amnesty International’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia Director, said: “The Russian authorities are...

Amnesty International: Ahead of the parliamentary vote on legislative amendments announced by the Georgian Dream ruling party, which aim to further silence dissent and tighten control over those who receive foreign support for political and other civic activity, Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia,...

From a judicial crisis to a prison crisis Prison Insider: A third of Gabon's population lives below the poverty line, according to the UN. The country has a particularly high incarceration rate: 226 people are imprisoned per 100,000 inhabitants. Overcrowding in prisons is rampant, the vast majority of detainees have not yet...

Amnesty International: The Egyptian authorities have intensified their crackdown on religious expression online in recent months, said Amnesty International today, calling on the authorities to immediately and unconditionally release 23 people arbitrarily detained solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of religion and belief. Over the past six months,...

Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC): In an era when digital infrastructures have a strong hold on everything from civic participation to surveillance, human rights interventions must reckon with cyber politics on a broader spectrum. But cyber politics is not just about digital rights, it is deeply embedded in the ecosystems...

Penal Reform International (PRI): Meaningful participation of people with lived experience in the EU and UN spaces is not a “nice extra” – it is the only way to make drug and prison policies genuinely people‑centred, effective and rooted in the realities of those most affected. For people like me,...

Sexual violence and family expulsion among the challenges facing African LBQ women  A new African Human Rights Coalition (AHRC) report reveals how lesbian, bisexual, and queer women experience systematic violence that begins within families and communities and continues through displacement, detention, and so-called host countries. Authored by Melanie Nathan, From Home to Hostile...

As Mayor Zohran Mamdani takes office, New York City stands at a crossroads. For decades, “public safety” in this city has been synonymous with policing, punishment, and incarceration. But New Yorkers know better: real safety isn’t achieved through handcuffs or jail cells—it’s built through stable access to affordable housing, food, health...

Tina was 16 years old when she says she was forced to get married. She describes what followed as decades of "relentless" abuse, including being "punched in the face a few times...[and] an incident where my head was smashed into a wall". It culminated in divorce - after which her...

New Zealand likes to present itself as the South Pacific’s moral leader. Abroad, its politicians speak fluently of bicultural partnership, equity, and human rights, invoking the 1840 Treaty of Waitangi as a progressive guiding principle. Yet at home, its prisons tell another story. Māori and Pacific peoples, though less than a fifth...

Across the world, incarcerated pregnant women are often held in deplorable conditions, leading some to miscarry or give birth alone inside a cell, say campaigners Dina Hernández was 35 weeks pregnant when she was arrested near her home in San Salvador in March 2024. The 28-year-old human rights activist, who was with...

In this second episode of our special series, ' Equal Under the Law?', we explore whether the law serves as a barrier or a tool for marginalized communities striving for equality, with a little help our expert panel of 11 inspiring activist leaders from Scotland. Throughout the episode, we confront...

A Clear Breakdown of Key Terms to Help the Public Speak Up, Push for Housing Solutions, and Move Past Harmful Misconceptions Invisible People: It’s happened to most of us at least once. We’ve walked past someone who didn’t have a home and wished we could help, but the fear of...

Amnesty International: Responding to the cancellation of bail of lawyers and human rights defenders Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha and an order to immediately arrest them in a bogus case relating to “anti-state” tweets, Babu Ram Pant, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, said:  “This baseless trial of Imaan Mazari-Hazir and Hadi Ali Chattha is a blatant abuse of the justice system. Pakistani authorities must end the judicial harassment and coercive tactics used to silence dissent and...

British Columbia, Canada will not be continuing its drug decriminalization project, Health Minister Josie Osborne announced in Victoria Wednesday. The three-year pilot project, which allowed people to be in possession of small amounts of illicit drugs, began on Jan. 31, 2023, and will expire at the end of this month....

Unprecedented Mass Prosecution of Xinjiang Protesters (London, January 15, 2026) – Kazakh authorities should drop charges against 18 Kazakh activists who peacefully protested against Chinese government abuses in Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said today. The activists, from the Nagyz Atajurt Volunteers group, face up to 10 years in prison for exercising their freedom of...

International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR) and Kazakhstan International Bureau for Human Rights and Rule of Law (KIBHR) are seriously concerned that a criminal case brought in Kazakhstan against activists protesting China’s repression of ethnic minorities is inconsistent with international human rights standards protecting freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and...