Women Beyond Walls: Women in contact with the criminal justice system across the globe face gender-specific discrimination and institutional barriers across the justice chain.

While international standards call for gender-responsive justice systems, pathways to release remain fragmented. These processes are still characterized by a harmful reliance on pre-trial detention, “survival-crime” criminalization, and criteria that overlook caregiving roles and experiences of violence.

At the same time, there is growing optimism about promising practices, sentence review mechanisms, non-custodial measures, and release programs, which can make a powerful difference when designed with a gender lens.

This hybrid event will:

• Position decarceration within the access-to-justice agenda of CSW70.
• Identify effective release mechanisms and gender-responsive criteria that work in practice.
• Surface harmful practices and structural barriers that impede women’s release.
• Center women’s lived experience to inform policy and implementation.