A/HRC/41/33
forces of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), 40 while women who escaped areas
held by ISIL have been detained in camps in Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic on
suspicion of involvement with or support for ISIL. The Working Group also notes the
blanket imprisonment of women in Chad and Nigeria suspected of having ties with Boko
Haram owing to area of origin or perceived exposure. Despite the fact that in many cases
the women themselves are not suspected of any wrongdoing, they are placed in detention
facilities or other forms of confinement for the alleged involvement of family members
with opposing forces.
IV. Conclusions and recommendations
A.
Conclusions
74.
Deprivation of liberty involves human rights violations and has devastating
consequences for women’s lives, putting them at risk of torture, violence and abuse,
unsafe and unsanitary conditions, lack of access to health services and further
marginalization. It cuts women off from educational and economic opportunities,
from their families and friends, and from the possibility of making their own choices
and directing the course of their lives as they see fit.
75.
Around the world, women are deprived of their liberty in many places and
contexts. They are confined in prisons and detention facilities, in hospitals and
psychiatric institutions and care homes, in workplaces, in private homes and in
conflict and humanitarian settings. They are deprived of their liberty by the State, but
also by community members, members of their own families, intimate partners,
caregivers, employers and criminal or armed groups.
76.
Deprivation of liberty is deeply gendered. While there are many forms, they are
all tied to causes rooted in discrimination against women. Many forms of deprivation
of women’s liberty spring from harmful stereotypes that seek to trap women in
subjugation or silence, to punish them for perceived moral or sexual deviancy, or to
smother them with overprotection. Those stereotypes are far too often enshrined in
national laws.
77.
Women’s deprivation of liberty is also frequently tied up with violence and
conflict, and with poverty, be it through lack of resources or lack of opportunity. Such
circumstances trap women, depriving them of choice and often putting them in
situations that lead to their confinement.
78.
Those risks are heightened for women who experience intersectional forms of
discrimination, such as women with disabilities, indigenous, migrant or older women,
women from racial, ethnic, sexual or gender minorities and other marginalized
women, all of whom face additional layers of harmful and debilitating stereotypes.
They are more exposed to violence, conflict, and economic “unfreedom” than other
women.
79.
Addressing women’s deprivation of liberty is thus not a simple matter of
reducing incarceration or institutionalization, or outlawing forced confinement in
domestic settings. Those steps are necessary, but they are not sufficient. Ensuring that
women enjoy liberty to the full extent and in equal measure with men will require the
transformation of societies to root out harmful stereotypes and economic and social
inequities.
40
See Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, “Detention in the
Syrian Arab Republic: a way forward”, (March 2018), para. 19.
17