A/RES/65/229
and services used as alternatives to imprisonment should be made available to women
offenders on an equal basis with male offenders; and that the United Nations, the
governmental and non-governmental organizations in consultative status with it and
all other international organizations should make continuing efforts to ensure that the
woman offender was treated fairly and equally during arrest, trial, sentence and
imprisonment, particular attention being paid to the special problems which women
offenders encounter, such as pregnancy and child care.
6.
The Seventh Congress, the Eighth Congress and the Ninth Congress also made
specific recommendations concerning women prisoners. 19, 20, 21
7.
In the Vienna Declaration on Crime and Justice: Meeting the Challenges of the
Twenty-first Century,7 adopted by the Tenth Congress, Member States committed
themselves to taking into account and addressing, within the United Nations crime
prevention and criminal justice programme, as well as within national crime
prevention and criminal justice strategies, any disparate impact of programmes and
policies on women and men (para. 11); and to the development of action-oriented
policy recommendations based on the special needs of women as prisoners and
offenders (para. 12). The plans of action for the implementation of the Vienna
Declaration8 contain a separate section (sect. XIII) devoted to specific recommended
measures to follow up on the commitments undertaken in paragraphs 11 and 12 of
the Declaration, including that of States reviewing, evaluating and, if necessary,
modifying their legislation, policies, procedures and practices relating to criminal
matters, in a manner consistent with their legal systems, in order to ensure that
women are treated fairly by the criminal justice system.
8.
The General Assembly, in its resolution 58/183 of 22 December 2003 entitled
“Human rights in the administration of justice”, called for increased attention to be
devoted to the issue of women in prison, including the children of women in prison,
with a view to identifying the key problems and ways in which they could be
addressed.
9.
In its resolution 61/143 of 19 December 2006 entitled “Intensification of
efforts to eliminate all forms of violence against women”, the General Assembly
stressed that “violence against women” meant any act of gender-based violence
resulting in, or likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or
suffering to women, including arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in
public or in private life, and urged States to review and, where appropriate, revise,
amend or abolish all laws, regulations, policies, practices and customs
discriminating against women or having a discriminatory impact on women, and
ensure that provisions of multiple legal systems, where they existed, complied with
_______________
19
See Seventh United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders,
Milan, 26 August–6 September 1985: report prepared by the Secretariat (United Nations publication, Sales
No. E.86.IV.1), chap. I, sect. E, resolution 6 (on the fair treatment of women by the criminal justice
system).
20
See Eighth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders,
Havana, 27 August–7 September 1990: report prepared by the Secretariat (United Nations publication,
Sales No. E.91.IV.2), chap. I, sect. A.5 (Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners (see also General
Assembly resolution 45/111, annex)); and ibid., sect. C, resolutions 17 (on pretrial detention), 19 (on the
management of criminal justice and development of sentencing policies) and 21 (on international and
interregional cooperation in prison management and community-based sanctions and other matters).
21
See A/CONF.169/16/Rev.1, chap. I, resolutions 1 (on recommendations on the four substantive topics of
the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders), 5 (on the
practical implementation of the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners) and 8 (on the
elimination of violence against women).
6