Locked Away While Innocent: Women, Human Rights, and Pre-Trial Detention

Pre-trial detention is intended to be a measure of last resort, yet it is excessively applied across jurisdictions worldwide. This paper examines its use, with particular emphasis on its application to women and its incompatibility with international human rights law, standards, and norms. We demonstrate that the inappropriate and widespread use of custodial remand violates fundamental human rights, while exposing the gendered and intersectional barriers that impede women’s access to bail. We further underscore the far-reaching social, economic, and emotional consequences of women’s incarceration. Drawing on a limited but expanding body of research, we argue that pre-trial detention operates as a form of gendered punishment that reflects and reinforces structural inequalities, producing enduring harms for women, their families, and communities. The paper concludes by calling for investment in gender-sensitive, non-custodial, and community-based alternatives that advance women’s decarceration. These measures must be underpinned by reforms that give practical effect to human rights law, standards, and norms, while also addressing the structural conditions that lead to women’s involvement in the criminal-legal system, and ending the unnecessary imprisonment of those who are legally innocent.