Gender Discrimination

1. Gender
Discrimination
Causes and Consequences of Women's
Imprisonment in Sierra Leone
Sabrina Mahtani
Co-Founder, AdvocAid
Research Findings by Isabella Cordua (AdvocAid/
Vance Center)

2. PATHWAYS TO PRISON:
POVERTY AND
DISCRIMINATORY LAWS
• 34% of women had
been arrested and
detained for survival
economic or petty
crime
• 19% of women either
charged or convicted of
larceny, robbery or
burglary
• Link between crime and
the pressures of
providing for families
• Petty offences are still
criminalized
• Formerly incarcerated
women said domestic
loitering laws used to
criminalize women
suspected of engaging in
sex work

3. PATHWAYS TO PRISON: GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE

4. • Low mental health awareness
• Unmet needs and prison conditions can trigger/exacerbate
mental health illness
MENTAL HEALTH
AS CAUSE AND
CONSEQUENCE OF WOMEN'S
IMPRISONMENT

5. CONSEQUENCES OF
DETENTION ON A
WOMAN’S FAMILY
TIES
• Many women in prison
worry about the stigma
post-release
• Families of detained
women also said they
face stigma
• The children often bear
the brunt; some may
leave school
• Many women reported
losing touch with family
and children
• Some said their partners
abandoned their
children and remarried
• Sometimes families and
partners had also sold
the women’s property

6. Key recommendations:
• Develop gender-specific alternatives to incarceration and community-
based non-custodial measures to reduce consequences of detention
• Decriminalize discriminatory laws
• Abolish mandatory sentencing and develop sentencing guidelines which
fully consider mitigating factors in sentencing
• Invest in legal empowerment services such as paralegals and gender-
responsive training
• Provide women in prison with gender-specific health services
• Increase efforts in post-release support
• Conduct further research on the different and disproportionate impacts
of criminal justice system on women

7. To Access the Tool Kit:
https://www.unodc.org/docume
nts/justice-and-prison-
reform/20-
01528_Gender_Toolkit_complete
.pdf
To be used in combination with
existing UNODC e-Learning
module on alternatives to
imprisonment for women
https://www.unodc.org/elearnin
g/en/courses/course-
catalogue.html#gender

8. THANK YOU!
Photo credits: Shantelle Spencer/AdvocAid.
All photos were taken in the Freetown Female
Correctional Centre in 2018.
Infographics: Anna Laura Magyarlaki
Research Findings: Isabella Cordua (AdvocAid/
Vance Center)