Laws criminalise women for acts of survival—from petty theft, such as stealing food for their babies, to begging, to working in the informal economy as domestic workers or street vendors, to women detained for debt in violation of international law. Women continue to be arrested under archaic, colonial-era vagrancy laws or simply for being homeless.

Although many of these laws appear gender-neutral, they disproportionately impact women due to the feminisation of poverty and systemic gender discrimination.