Gender, drugs, and criminal justice: Navigating human rights challenges - CCPCJ side event

Parallel event to the 30th CCPCJ intersessional meeting, 12 November 2021

This parallel event to the 30th intersessional meeting of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice explored the gendered impacts of drug control and the carceral system on women’s human rights, and offered some key recommendations for the way forward.

Worldwide, over a third of incarcerated women are in prison for drug offences. This proportion rises to 50% and even 80% in several Latin American and Asian countries. Although more men are incarcerated for drug offences globally, available research shows the differentiated and disproportionate impacts of drug control on women. Addressing the over-incarceration of women worldwide therefore requires urgent reforms of drug policies, including those established by UN bodies.

This parallel event included the following speakers:

• H.E. Luis Javier Campuzano Piña,Ambassador of Mexico to the International Organizations in Vienna, providing Introductory remarks
• Dr. Miriam Estrada-Castillo, UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD): Presenting the WGAD deliberation on women and deprivation of liberty.
• Gloria Lai, Regional Director for Asia at IDPC: Setting the scene and presenting findings on equity from the new Global Drug Policy Index.
• Parina Subba Limbu, Director at Dristi Nepal: On the intersecting marginalisation experienced by women who use drugs or who are involved in the criminal legal system in Nepal
• Triona Lenihan, Policy and International Advocacy Manager at PRI: Presenting the key recommendations from the PRI/IDPC joint ‘10-point plan: Gender-sensitive drug policies for women’
• Coletta Youngers, Senior Fellow with WOLA and with IDPC: Moderation.