CSW70 | Decarceration as Access to Justice: Gender-Responsive Pathways for Women

Women in contact with the criminal justice system across the globe face gender-specific discrimination and institutional barriers throughout the justice chain.

While international standards call for gender-responsive justice systems, pathways to release remain fragmented. These processes are still characterized by a harmful reliance on pre-trial detention, “survival-crime” criminalization, and criteria that overlook caregiving roles and experiences of violence.

At the same time, there is growing optimism about promising practices, sentence review mechanisms, non-custodial measures, and release programs, which can make a powerful difference when designed with a gender lens.

This hybrid event will:

• Position decarceration within the access-to-justice agenda of CSW70.
• Identify effective release mechanisms and gender-responsive criteria that work in practice.
• Surface harmful practices and structural barriers that impede women’s release.
• Center women’s lived experience to inform policy and implementation.

This event is hosted in partnership with Women Beyond Walls, EQUIS Justicia para las Mujeres, ILANUD (UN Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders), Penal Reform International, Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, Corporación Humanas, and the International Network of Formerly Incarcerated Women.

The discussion will be in English and Spanish, with interpretation available via a Zoom link.

If you will require interpretation, please register here and bring your own device with headphones.

Light breakfast will be provided.

Decarceration as Access to Justice: Gender-Responsive Pathways for Women

Date: Thursday, March 12, 2026

Time: 9:00 – 10:30 a.m. ET

Location: New York City Bar Association, 42 W. 44th St., New York and on Zoom

Keynote: Patsilí Toledo Vásquez – Member of the UN CEDAW Committee (2025-2028)

Invited Speaker: Cheryl Wilkins, Co-Director, The Center for Justice, Columbia University

Panelists

• Maïssa Hubert Chakour, Deputy Executive Director, EQUIS Justicia para las Mujeres
• Angélica Beltrán, Coordinadora Línea de Mujeres en Cárceles y Libres, Corporación Humanas
• Sabrina Mahtani, Co-founder, Women Beyond Walls
• Jerome Mangelinckx, Global Policy Manager, PRI
• Maria Fernanda Rodríguez, former Vice-Minister of Justice of Argentina, and Lead Coordinator, Ibero-American Alliance for Access to Justice (IBA)
• Douglas Durán, Director, ILANUD

Moderator: Romina Canessa, Senior Staff Attorney, Human Rights & Access to Justice Program

Register here to attend in person

Register here to attend virtually