Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70) 2026 Guide
A special LIVE CSW70 newsletter, March 2026, from Women Beyond Walls
This guide is being sent by email on 26 February 2026, but will be updated regularly during CSW70, so please feel free to return and stay up to date on all that is going on. For those receiving this for the first time as an email subscriber, you will need to click on the ‘online’ version of this newsletter to see updates (you will find this also via our Women Beyond Walls Substack home page). We will also share updates on Women Beyond Wall’s social media channels.
While we normally publish our newsletter in both French and Spanish too, the CSW70 Guide will only be in English due to the frequent updating - however, where multiple language versions of flyers exist we will put all language versions into the guide.
LAST UPDATED 12 MARCH 2026
What this guide is for? Women Beyond Walls at CSW70
Women Beyond Walls has created this CSW70 Guide to spotlight events focused on addressing the mass incarceration and criminalisation of women and girls.
We recognise that due to expense and visa restrictions, CSW is not an accessible space for many, especially formerly incarcerated women and women from Global Majority countries. We also know for many, safety and security are major concerns this year. Therefore we include as many online/virtual events and resources as possible in this guide and will continue to do so as we update it.
As Women Beyond Walls, we have chosen to attend CSW70 this year. We do so with full understanding and deep respect for those who have decided to step back from the space due to safety concerns or other principled reasons. These are not easy decisions, and we honour the care and conviction behind them.
For us, maintaining a presence remains important, particularly this year, when there is a significant opportunity to further advance the recognition and inclusion of women and girls impacted by criminalisation and incarceration within the global gender equality agenda. This builds on years of organising and advocacy led by our community, including our 2023 campaign for inclusion, and reflects our continued commitment to ensuring these voices are not sidelined.
We also stand in deep solidarity with the feminists and gender justice advocates coming together in New York, whose presence reflects an ongoing commitment to protecting and progressing hard-won rights. We remain grateful for the trusted collaborations we have formed with partners working within UN institutions, who persist in advancing human rights and gender justice despite an increasingly fraught and difficult global climate.
We know that meaningful change requires both presence and pressure from many different groups, we need to go beyond not only walls, but also silos! There is much that must evolve. We hope that at CSW, alongside CSW, and beyond CSW, we can all create and nurture spaces for reflection, accountability and collective strategy — strengthening how we organise, together, as a united feminist movement committed to transformative gender justice.
In addition to our guide, you can see many other side-events happening in NYC with a broader focus than our own, you can look at this list. We find a useful tag to use is ‘Womans access to justice’ to search this site. UN Women also has a list with many side-events on it.
Please feel free to share this guide widely with anyone who will find it useful. If you are not in New York, some of the below activities and events are hybrid or taking place entirely online - join them.
LIVE GUIDE – CSW70
Monday 9 March
Ensuring Women’s Access to Justice and Addressing Structural Barriers
📅 9 March | 10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. EST
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: CCUN, 777 United Nations Plaza, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10017
Description
This panel seeks to foster meaningful dialogue, identify and propose concrete actions to uphold women’s human rights and ensure access to justice, promote inclusive legal systems, and dismantle structural barriers.
Objectives
To examine the current landscape of human rights violations against women and girls in countries where democracy and the rule of law are in decline.
To discuss ways to ensure and strengthen access to justice for all women and girls, including marginalised groups.
To promote the development of inclusive and equitable legal systems that eliminate discrimination and uphold women’s rights.
To identify and address structural barriers—such as discriminatory laws, policies, social norms, and institutional practices—that impede women’s pursuit of justice and equality.
To foster international dialogue, knowledge sharing, and partnership building aimed at advancing gender equality and women’s rights.
Transforming Prison and Correctional Systems for a Caring Society / Promoción de sistemas carcelarios y penitenciarios para una sociedad del cuidado
📅 9 March | 3:30 - 5 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person (hybrid event)
✍️Register here to attend virtually (hybrid event)
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: Greenberg Traurig, LLP, One Vanderbilt Ave, New York, NY and on Zoom
Description
What does a caring society require from prison or correction reform?
Join us for a conversation to examine discriminatory laws, policies, and practices driving criminalization and prosecution of women, and to share innovative ideas for embedding a care-based approach in penitentiary and justice policies.
This panel will address some of the challenges faced by women deprived of their liberty and highlight innovative approaches to transforming prison and penitentiary systems from a feminist perspective of care.
Additional details
In collaboration with Corporación Humanas Colombia, International Network of Formerly Incarcerated Women (INFIW).
Tuesday 10 March
Broken Promises: How Legal Systems Can Harm Instead of Heal
📅 10 March | 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. EDT
✍️ Registration not required, but you may RSVP here (CSW Whova platform)
📍Address: Salvation Army, Lower Level, 221 E. 52nd St, New York, NY, 10022
Description
Across jurisdictions, survivors of gender-based violence face legal systems that are formally open but structurally hostile. Such environments are often shaped by embedded structural inequalities and gender stereotypes and a poor understanding of trauma and abuse. Survivors may reach court yet experience revictimisation, criminalisation, silencing, institutional violence in custody disputes, hostile welfare agencies and ineffective legal aid - so “access to court” rarely means access to justice. Women are not only underserved and restricted, but are often further harmed through institutional betrayal, including the arrest and prosecution of survivors for abuse-related actions, defamation suits for speaking out, and the loss of children based on false narratives from abusers, such as so-called parental alienation.
Through the present event, we will present global experiences, particularly in the U.S and Europe, to highlight how women experience barriers to justice that mirror the very harms from which they are seeking protection.
Extra Punishment: Gender-Based Violence in the Fight Against Organized Crime / Castigo extra: violencia de género en la lucha contra el crimen organizado
📅 10 March | 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in-person
📍Address: Open Society Foundations (224 W 57th St., Room 7A, New York)
Description
A roundtable on the impact of organized crime prosecution on women and their families.
The event aims to share the preliminary findings of an ongoing research project in Latin America and to foster a space for dialogue to examine how criminal prosecution strategies and organized crime control policies produce differentiated impacts on women, including those deprived of liberty and their family environments.
Speakers include representatives from CELS (Center for Legal and Social Studies – Argentina), CEA Justicia Social (Mexico), and UN Women.
Additional Details
The event will be held in Spanish and English.
Legal Aid: An Essential Service for People in Contact with the Criminal Justice System for Drug-Related Offences
📅 10 March | 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. EDT
✍️ No registration link, attend in-person or virtually via the Teams link below
💻 Teams link here (online link)
📍Address: Room M7, Vienna International Centre, New York, NY and on Teams
Description
*This event is a CND side event, not a CSW side event.
Join us for a panel discussion to explore how legal aid services can accelerate and improve justice and health outcomes for people in contact with the law for drug offences, in line with UN standards and informed by lived experience.
Access to Justice for Women Human Rights Defenders
📅 10 March | 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: UN Church Center, 11th floor, New York City
Description
This CSQ parallel event will offer a cross-regional panel that will conduct an intersectional analysis of WHRDs’ access to justice and the structural barriers that impede it. Speakers will explore how WHRDs are criminalized, harassed, and silenced for their activism in diverse political and social contexts, and will highlight effective documentation, advocacy, and protection strategies that sustain their work and resilience.
Drawing on concrete examples of transnational solidarity, the event will emphasize the importance of collective action and cross-movement collaboration in advancing accountability, protection, and justice for WHRDs worldwide.
Speakers
Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of the Amnesty International
Emilie De Wolf, Advocacy Co-coordinator, IM-Defensoras
Amel Hadjadj, Journal féministe algérien, Alliance féministe francophone
Tatiana Mukaniré, SEMA network, Democratic Republic of Congo
Additional details
Languages: English and French (interpretation provided)
The event is co-organised by:
The Women Human Rights Defenders International Coalition (WHRDIC),
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH),
Amnesty International,
Mesoamerican Initiative of Women Human Rights Defenders (IM-Defensoras),
Coalition of Women Human Rights Defenders in the SWANA region (WHRD MENA),
Women’s International Peace Center
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Co-supported by the Alliance féministe francophone (AFF).
Wednesday 11 March
Repensar la justicia desde las mujeres indígenas en América Latina
📅 11 March | 09:00 - 11:00 a.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in-person
📍 New York City Bar Association - Salón Cromwell, 42 W 44th St, New York City
Description
This event is in Spanish only.
En el marco de la CSW, la RAI, EQUIS Justicia para las Mujeres, ECMIA, SEPREM y el Colegio de Abogados de Nueva York les invitamos a un espacio de diálogo sobre los desafíos que enfrentan mujeres y niñas indígenas para acceder a los sistemas de justicia y cómo repensar las justicias desde un enfoque intercultural, antirracista y con perspectiva de género.
Desde la experiencia de defensoras y lideresas indígenas, el panel abordará las múltiples barreras estructurales que limitan el acceso a la justicia —como las distancias geográficas, la falta de recursos económicos, la ausencia de intérpretes en lenguas indígenas y la escasa coordinación entre los sistemas de justicia— y propondrá caminos para repensar el acceso a las justicias desde un enfoque intercultural, antirracista, con perspectiva de género e interseccionalidad.
Reclaiming Justice: Addressing the Criminalization of Women from Global Perspectives
📅 11 March | 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person (scroll to the bottom of the page for the form)
📍Address: Akin Gump Law firm, Bank of America Tower, 1 Bryant Pk, New York, NY 10036
Description
This panel will explore how gender inequality, discrimination, and violence shape women’s involvement with criminal legal systems across different regions. Speakers will examine discriminatory laws, gender-blind procedures, and systemic bias that contribute to the rising number of women in prison worldwide.
Speakers
Doreen N. Kyazze (Penal Reform International Uganda)
Ambika Satkunanathan ( Justice Future Collaborative/Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network)
Anne Applebaum (The Advocates for Human Rights)
Moderator
Laura Nyirinkindi (Former chair and member of the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls)
Additional details
Lunch will be provided.
Feminist Approaches to Justice: Gender and Access to Justice
📅 11 March | 12:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ No registration link – attend in-person
📍Address: Church Center of the United Nations, 8th Floor, 777 UN Plaza, New York
Description
The panel focuses on the CSW70 priority theme: ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls. Panelists examine numerous facets of access as it intersects with education, reproductive rights, peace and security.
Comparative Justice for Women: Women, Justice, and Carceral Systems: Iran to USA
📅 11 March | 2:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend online
📍Address: Online, on Zoom
More information on the Instagram page of the Iranian Circle of the Women’s Intercultural Network (ICWIN)
Punishment. Then What? Shortcomings of Criminalization as a Route for Justice
📅 11 March | 4:00 - 6:00 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: Rodney’s Bar, 1118 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10065
Description
This event aims to highlight some of the faultlines that emerge when access to justice fails to be comprehensive and when international commitments fail to capture what is actually needed to access justice on the ground.
Speakers
Nana Abuelsoud, RESURJ Member
Mirta (Michi) Moragas, Consultorio Jurídico Feminista, former RESURJ Member
Chantal Umuhoza, RESURJ Member
Moderator: Sara Martínez Cabello, RESURJ Member
Read the full “Punishment. Then What?” event brief.
Additional Details
With:
Realizing sexual and reproductive justice (RESURJ)
Tanga Community by Spectra
Consultorio Juridico Feminista
Feminist Approaches to Justice: Feminist Approaches to Access to Justice
📅 11 March | 4:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ No registration link – attend in-person
📍Address: Church Center of the United Nations, 8th Floor, 777 UN Plaza, New York
Description
The panel aligns with the CSW70 focus of access to justice. Panelists will examine the intersections of gender and access to justice for individuals in conflict with the law, including victims/survivors and detained or incarcerated persons.
Access to Justice: South-South Strategies for Dismantling Discriminatory Laws and Practices Against Women
📅 11 March | 5:30 - 8:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person (hybrid event)
✍️Register here to attend virtually (hybrid event)
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: Carter/Evarts Room, New York City Bar Association, 42 W. 44th St., New York or Zoom
Event link here
Description
This event will provide a space to share cross-regional strategies for reforming discriminatory laws and policies to ensure that women and girls have full access to justice.
The opening panel discussion will explore how discriminatory laws and practices, such as legacies of colonial legal systems, patriarchal norms, and structural discrimination, present barriers to access to justice for women and girls. Expert speakers will highlight innovative, movement-based approaches to reforming some of these laws and offer insights into best practices and effective strategies. Following the panel, attendees will participate in small-group conversations to identify opportunities for cross-regional collaboration and concrete next steps.
A reception will follow the discussions.
Panelists
Dr. Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, Deputy Executive Director, UN Women
Prof. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, Professor of Public Law; former UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children
Revai Makanje Aalbaek, Global Lead and Advisor, Rule of Law, Justice and Security, UN Development Programme
Thursday 12 March
Decarceration as access to justice: Gender-responsive pathways for women
📅 12 March | 9:00 - 10:30 a.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person (hybrid event)
✍️Register here to attend virtually (hybrid event)
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: New York City Bar Association, 42 W. 44th St., New York and on Zoom
Event link here
Description
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.
Additional details
Women Beyond Walls is a co-sponsor and our very own Sabrina is a panelist.
In English and Spanish, virtual interpretation available.
With PRI, Women Beyond Walls, ILANUD, Pathfinders, Corporación Humanas, EQUIS, Articulación Regional Feminista
Coffee/tea and light snacks will be provided.
Legal Empowerment Strategies for Cultural Transformation: Taking on Anti-Gender Narratives and Norms
📅 12 March | 10:00 a.m. - 11:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: Uganda House, 226 E 45th St. New York, NY
Description
This 90-minute interactive side event during the Commission on the Status of Women 70 (CSW70) brings together feminist justice defenders from across the world, including Uganda, Mexico, and Bangladesh, to discuss how legal empowerment – which enables communities to know, use, and shape the law – can transform gender discriminatory practices while preserving cultural identity. They will share practical approaches to using culture as a tool in advancing justice for women and girls. Participants will discuss how legal empowerment approaches can be applied in their contexts and how to craft effective narratives around women’s rights, leaving with tangible ideas and real-time feedback for action.
Our panelists will include:
Fátima Gamboa, Director, Equis: Justicia para las Mujeres, México
Elizabeth Kemigisha, Advocacy and Policy Manager, FIDA Uganda
Lipi Rahman, Executive Director, Badabon Sangho, Bangladesh
The discussion will be moderated by Denise Dora, Board Member, THEMIS (Brazil).
Access to Justice Denied: Women Facing the Death Penalty
📅 12 March | 3:00 p.m. - 4.30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: Permanent Mission of Switzerland, 633 3rd Ave 29th Floor, New York.
Description
This event will examine the systemic and intersectional discrimination faced by women exposed to the death penalty, with particular attention to the structural barriers that limit their access to justice. It will explore how criminal justice systems often reproduce gender inequality, especially for women from marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds.
The discussion will highlight gendered pathways to criminalization, including gender-based violence, poverty, coercion, caregiving responsibilities, and discriminatory legal frameworks. A speaker with lived experience of being sentenced to death will share her story, alongside experts who will address cases involving survivors of violence prosecuted or sentenced to death for acts linked to prolonged abuse, coercive control, or survival-driven conduct.
Panelists
Ambika Satkunanathan,
Doreen N Kyazze,
Laura Nyirinkindi,
Sabrina Butler Smith (Witness to Innocence).
Moderator: Sabrina Mahtani (Women Beyond Walls)
Reproductive Justice in the Digital Age
📅 12 March | 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: New York City Bar Association, 42 W. 44th St., New York;
Description
This panel will examine key challenges such as content moderation, online harassment, and the criminalization of digital expression, while highlighting the role of health providers, feminist organizations, and grassroots networks in delivering accurate information and support. We will also discuss legal strategies to protect defenders and advance accountability in digital spaces.
A brief reception will follow the panel.
Panelists
Jovana Ríos Cisnero, Executive Director, Women’s Link Worldwide
Venny Ala-Siurua, Executive Director, Women on Web
Lina López, Founder and Director, AbortionData
Angie Jean-Marie, Co-Director, Plan C
Women’s Access to Justice Free from Legal Retaliation
📅 12 March | 1:15 - 2.30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
✍️ Register here to attend online
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: UN Women Headquarters, Daily News Building, New York
Event link here
Description
Women’s access to justice is a fundamental human right and a central concern of international and regional human rights frameworks. Legal systems are a fundamental pillar of every society and play a crucial role in protecting rights and upholding justice at international, regional, and national levels. Yet in many parts of the world, instead of safeguarding those who advocate for equality and justice, legal systems are increasingly misused as instruments to silence, intimidate, or punish women who challenge discrimination, violence, or unequal laws. [...]
For some time, the different members of the Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on Discrimination and Violence against Women (EDVAW Platform) have been pointing to these developments within the work carried out under their respective mandates. By speaking to the situation across the globe, this side event seeks to highlight the findings they have made as global and regional women’s rights bodies and to offer possible solutions, including for States/national authorities.
Speakers
Janet R. Sallah Njie, Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa (SRRWA)
Miriam Roache, President of the Follow-up Mechanism to the Belém do Pará Convention (MESECVI)
Maria-Andriani Kostopoulou, Chair of the EDVAW Platform and President of the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO)
Patsili Toledo Vasquez, Member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee)
Laura Nyirinkindi, Member of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls (WGDAWG)
Additional details
Light lunch will be provided.
Criminalization of Women-Justice Operators in Guatemala: Structural Challenges and Institutional Responses / Criminalización de las operadoras de justicia en Guatemala: Desafíos estructurales y respuestas institucionales
📅 12 March | 4:00 - 5:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
✍️ Register here to attend online
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: New York City Bar Association, 42 W. 44th St., New York, and on Zoom
Event link here
Description
This is an essential conversation on criminal proceedings targeting anti-corruption prosecutors, human rights lawyers, and other women justice operators in Guatemala.
We will hear directly from three of those lawyers, two of whom were forced into exile from Guatemala, and from experts in international law, including the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers. Drawing on these personal experiences and perspectives, we will gain a greater understanding of the realities of judicial persecution, how to view these practices through a gender framework, and what responses are necessary to address them.
Additional details:
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.
From Punishment to Protection: A Feminist Case for Drug Policy Reform.
📅 12 March | 4:00 - 6:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: Open Society Foundations Offices – 1ABC, 224 West 57 Street, New York NY, 10019
Description
The side event will be developed in two parts.
First, we will host a panel discussion with representatives from the Colombian Government, Corporación Humanas, Metzineres, and Open Society Foundations. The panel will focus on:
Promoting drug policy reform from a feminist and human rights perspective;
Raising awareness about the impact of prohibitionist and punitive drug policies on the criminalization and discrimination of women;
Examining how the prohibitionist paradigm has been used to justify interventionism, militarization, and human rights violations; and
Sharing best practices and evidence from alternative approaches at the global level.
As a second and complementary moment, we will present a photographic exhibition titled “Punishment Within Punishment: Social Stigmatization of Women Deprived of Liberty,” highlighting the lived experiences and layered forms of punishment faced by incarcerated women in Colombia.
Friday 13 March
Attacking Our Movements: Far Right Securization Regimes Threatening Access to Justice
📅 13 March | 8:30 - 10:00 a.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
📍Address: Salvation Army, Lower Level, 221 E. 52nd St, New York, NY, 10022
Description
Expanding securitization practices claw back on feminist movements’ ability to participate fully in civic and public life, undermining access to justice. As anti-rights security narratives spread transnationally, shaping policy and digital governance, women and gender-diverse communities encounter criminalization and profound barriers to organizing and expression. Launching new research, we explore how far-right security frameworks police our borders and seek to block, derail, and delegitimize our movements. Speakers will discuss these tactics and discourses, examining the role of Big Tech and colonial legacies, and look toward feminist possibilities of safety, community, and care that would make us secure, not securitized.
Organized by Noor & The Polis Project.
Sociological Approaches to Gender Justice
📅 13 March | 8:30 a.m. EDT
💻 Register here to attend online
📍Address: On Zoom
Description
This event features sociological research on access to justice for women and girls in several countries. Panelists examine gendered barriers to justice, including gender inequality in education and decision making.
Moderator: Rosemary Barberet, Professor, John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Representative to the United Nations for the International Sociological Association and Criminologists without Borders
Presentations
Amazonian Women’s Power: Eco-Solidarity in the Pursuit of Gender and Environmental Justice Marian Orjuela, Heidelberg University
When Protection Becomes Predation: Legal Accountability Gaps for Sexual Harassment of Vulnerable Women in Clinical and leisure Support Settings Huimei Liu, Zhejiang University
Global Perspectives on the Feminization of Poverty Sheila Katz, University of Houston
Higher Education and Gender Inequality Natasha Quadlin, University of California, Los Angeles
Plus c’est la même chose Máiréad Dunne, University College Cork Barbara Crossouard, University of Sussex
Bridging the Gender Gap in Legislative Representation: Lessons from Electoral Systems, Quota Laws, and Women Legislative Representation Daniel Amoah, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Gender Justice Issues in the Context of Mental Transition in Kazakhstan: Combating Violence, Distorted Normality, and Overcoming the Illusions of Masculine Consciousness Sergey Konovalov; Institute of Contemporary Politics
Beyond Prison Walls: Weaving Networks for Women’s Access to Justice in the Americas/ Más allá del castigo: Tejiendo redes para el acceso a la justicia de mujeres en América
📅 13 March | 9:00 - 11:00 a.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person
✍️ Register here to attend online
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: New York City Bar Association - 42 W 44th Street, New York, NY 10036
Description
Join the Women in Prison Network for a dialogue on the structural barriers and challenges faced by women deprived of liberty in accessing justice across the Americas. The event will explore dynamics of criminalization, pathways into alleged offenses, and the role of institutional violence, while also highlighting diverse strategies that support and advocate for women in these contexts.
More event details to come.
Additional details
With:
Cyrus Vance Center for International Justice
Bernstein Institute for Human Rights
CEA Justicia Social
The Jailhouse Lawyers Initiative
Pathways to People-Centered Justice: Women’s Trajectories and Inequalities in Ibero-America
📅 13 March | 11:30 a.m. - 12:45 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in person (select in-person ticket)
✍️ Register here to attend online (select online ticket)
💻 Zoom link here
📍Address: Bahá’í International Community United Nations Office (866 United Nations Plaza, Suite 120)
Event link with more information here
Description
The event aims to present the Alliance’s new thematic report to a diverse audience of policymakers, justice operators, civil society actors, and international organizations. Through the dissemination of its key findings, the event seeks to position Ibero-America within global debates on women’s access to justice, highlight structural gaps, and showcase good practices and innovative responses moving towards more people-centered justice systems, with a specific in-focus emphasis on women deprived of liberty.
Additional details
The event will be in Spanish and English, online and in-person.
Zoom link details: Meeting ID: 929 2402 0829 | Passcode: 787365
Monday 16 March
From Punishment to Power: Gender-Based Violence, Criminalization, and Access to Justice
📅 16 March | 10:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. EDT
✍️ No registration link, attend in-person
📍Address: UN Church Center, New York City, NY
Description
This panel brings together activists, researchers, and survivors to ask hard questions: Does criminalization actually deliver justice? Who gets protected by the law — and who gets punished by it? And in an era of rising authoritarianism and shrinking resources, how do we build a bolder, more honest agenda for tackling GBV?
Featuring voices from across movements — community-based restorative justice, digital rights, survivor advocacy, and legal reform — this is a space for candid, cross-regional dialogue about what justice really means, and how we get there without causing more harm along the way.
Moderated by Subha Wijesiriwardena (Just Futures Collaborative)
Speakers:
Karla Velasco (APC)
Ambika Satkunanathan (Just Futures Collaborative)
Pupul Lama (COFEM)
Mon Mohapatra (Survived and Punished)
Kika (Actos Transformadores, Mexico)
Sabrina Mahtani (Women Beyond Walls)
Bronwyn Masters (AMAFA Foundation, South Africa)
Tuesday 17 March
Feminist Approaches to Justice: Access to Justice for All
📅 17 March | 2:30 p.m. EDT
💻 Register here to attend online
📍Address: On Zoom
Description
The panel examines access to justice barriers and ways to strengthen access to justice for all through equitable and inclusive legal systems. Particular focus is given to women at the margins, including human trafficking survivors, indigenous women, and women and girls in conflict and post conflict settings.
Justice Beyond Jails - Campaign Launch
📅 17 March | 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. EDT
✍️ Register here to attend in-person
📍Address: UN Church Center, New York City, NY
Description
Justice beyond Jails is a global campaign that calls attention to how responses to gender-based violence are too often centered in policing and incarceration. The campaign foregrounds opportunities to advance safety, accountability, and justice that prioritize those who have experienced harm, beyond criminal legal systems. The campaign will run from 18 March to 17 September 2026.
The launch panel and presentation will explore: how do we respond to gender-based violence with strategies that create justice, safety and freedom for all? How do we interrogate the overwhelming and serious limitations of punitive responses to GBV? The conversation will also call attention to the growing weaponization of violence narratives, especially how these narratives are misused in ways that demonize people who already face discrimination and exclusion.
At the launch event, they will introduce the Justice beyond Jails interactive storytelling tool. This tool places the user in the shoes of four characters, each navigating their own experience of gender-based violence across different ages, locations, and circumstances. The user will join their search for a resolution, and their choices will shape the story’s outcome, inviting deeper reflection on what shapes real safety, accountability, and justice. The campaign and interactive tool will go live on 18 March.
Speakers at the event include:
Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty International
Catherine Nyambura, the Athena Network
Ambika Satkunanathan, Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, Sri Lanka.
Moderator: Susana T Fried, Just Futures Collaborative
Wednesday 18 March
Enfoques feministas de la justicia
📅 18 March | 8:30 a.m. EDT
💻 Register here to attend online
📍Address: On Zoom
This event is in Spanish only.
Este evento paralelo presentará investigaciones relevantes del mundo hispano sobre el acceso a la justicia para las mujeres y las niñas.
Addressing the Laws and Practices that Criminalize Women due to Poverty and Status Worldwide
📅 18 March | 10:00 - 11:15 a.m. EDT
✍️ Register here by March 12 (for those without a valid UN or CSW grounds pass)
💻 Live videostream link here
📍Address: Room CR-E, United Nations Headquarters, New York
Description
Speakers from Member States, UN entities, civil society, and women with lived experience will discuss key recommendations for gender-transformative, rights-based justice reform.
Key note speaker: Mary Robinson (former president of Ireland, Chair at The Elders; Co-Founder of Project Dandelion)
Additional details
This is an official UN side event.
WBW is a co-sponsor, with
The Permanent Missions of Thailand, Colombia, Liechtenstein
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),
The Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ),
United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD),
Penal Reform International
The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice.
Friday 20 March
Access to Justice Denied: Women Facing the Death Penalty: focus on solutions and tools (World Coalition Against the Death Penalty)
📅 20 March | 08:30 - 10:00 a.m. EDT
✍️ No registration details, in-person only
📍Address: Church Center for the United Nations, 777 United Nations Plaza, 10th Floor
Description
Building on the analysis of systemic and intersectional discrimination, this session will focus on practical tools, legal strategies, and advocacy approaches to better protect women facing the death penalty. It will explore how a gender-sensitive and trauma-informed framework can be integrated at every stage of the criminal legal process — from investigation and sentencing to appeals, clemency, and post-conviction advocacy.
The discussion will highlight promising practices, including the use of gender-based mitigation evidence, strategic litigation, legislative reform efforts, and international human rights mechanisms. Speakers will present concrete examples of how lawyers, civil society organizations, and advocates have successfully challenged death sentences in cases involving survivors of gender-based violence, coercion, or exploitation. Particular attention will be given to building gender-responsive defense strategies, strengthening data collection, and developing advocacy campaigns that center the lived experiences and agency of women directly impacted.
Panelists:
Debra Mike (WTI)
Amy Bergquist (TAHR)
Chelsea L Halstead (Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide)
Ambika Satkunanatha (JFC/ADPAN).
Additional details
WBW is a co-sponsor.
This newsletter will be updated daily until 20 March 2026. If you have more updates, events, or other CSW related activities that are not in here, please let us know at communications@womenbeyondwalls.org.