Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - Preventing and responding to all forms of violence against women and girls in criminal justice detention - Call for Inputs - Death penalty - November 2024
Country: United States of America
Partners: The Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Issues: Death Penalty, Gender-Based Violence, Women's Rights
Mechanism: UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Report Type: Call for Inputs
The abolitionist movement has long ignored the situation of women under sentence of death. Women make up a small minority of the world's death row population, but their experiences prior to coming into conflict with the law as well as within the criminal legal system are characterized by pervasive gender-based discrimination. Most women under sentence of death are survivors of gender-based violence. Yet detention conditions typically exacerbate trauma, whether through gender-based violence at the hands of prison staff or other people in detention, or through degrading detention conditions and the denial of access to appropriate hygiene products and facilities. Trans women are even more likely to face gender-based violence than their cis-gender counterparts.
