“Judged for More Than Her Crime”: New Report Examines Worldwide Use of Death Penalty Against Women

Women face ​“wide­spread dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices in the cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion and deten­tion” in death-penal­ty coun­tries around the world, accord­ing to a new report by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide and the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The report, Judged for More Than Her Crime: A Global Overview of Women Facing the Death Penalty—released at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland on September 18, 2018 — exam­ines the use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment against women world­wide, includ­ing the crimes for which women are sen­tenced to death and the con­di­tions of impris­on­ment they face on death row. 

At least 500 women are on death rows around the world, and the report esti­mates that more than 100 women have been exe­cut­ed in the last decade. The cas­es in which women are sen­tenced to death, the report states, are ​“emblem­at­ic of sys­temic fail­ings in the appli­ca­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment,” with death sen­tences often imposed on women who are illit­er­ate, men­tal­ly ill, intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled, or mem­bers of mar­gin­al­ized ethnic groups. 

The report finds that women’s his­to­ries of gen­der-based vio­lence are fre­quent­ly ignored by attor­neys and judges in those coun­tries that retain the death penal­ty. In a state­ment accom­pa­ny­ing release of the report, the Cornell Center wrote, “[f]emale sur­vivors of domes­tic abuse are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to unfair sentencing practices.” 

While the report notes that gen­der bias can oper­ate in favor of more lenient sen­tenc­ing for some women, that same gen­der bias results in harsh­er treat­ment of women who are seen as vio­lat­ing gen­der expec­ta­tions. “[W]omen fac­ing the death penal­ty have been cast as the ​‘femme fatale,’ the ​‘child mur­der­er,’ or the ​‘witch,’” the report says. In the fore­word to the report, Agnes Callamard, the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary, or Arbitrary Executions, writes that “[c]riminal jus­tice process­es, large­ly designed by and for men, fre­quent­ly are not only blind to the caus­es and con­se­quences of gen­der-based vio­lence, they may active­ly rein­force gen­der-based dis­crim­i­na­tion.” The report, she says, ​“reveals that courts judge women not just for their alleged offens­es, but also for what are per­ceived to be their moral fail­ings as women: as ​‘dis­loy­al’ wives, ​‘uncar­ing’ moth­ers, ​‘ungrate­ful’ daugh­ters. Nowhere are trans­gres­sions of the social norms of gen­der behav­ior pun­ished more severe­ly than in a capital trial.” 

The report also doc­u­ments how women are unique­ly affect­ed by the harsh con­di­tions on death rows around the world. In some coun­tries, they must care for their infants or young chil­dren while shack­led by the hands and feet. Female pris­on­ers in Thailand and Myanmar have report­ed­ly giv­en birth alone in prison. Menstruating women are giv­en lit­tle or no access to san­i­tary pads or oth­er necessary products.

Sandra Babcock, Faculty Director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, said: ​“Hundreds of women have been unjust­ly sen­tenced to death around the world, yet their cas­es have been neglect­ed by activists, schol­ars, and the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. We hope that this report will draw atten­tion to their plight and inspire courts and pol­i­cy­mak­ers to mod­i­fy their sentencing practices.”