30 November 2025 :
November 27, 2025 - GLOBAL. How many women are in prison or on death row around the world?
While fewer women than men are incarcerated, their numbers are rising faster and most often for non-violent offences.
How many women are in prison around the world?
More than 733,000 women and girls are held in penal institutions globally, according to the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, either as pre-trial detainees or remand prisoners, or having been convicted and sentenced. The actual total is thought to be much higher, as figures for five countries (Cuba, Eritrea, Somalia, Uzbekistan, North Korea) are not available and those for China are incomplete.
Women are always a minority in national prison populations: in 2024 women and girls made up just 6.8% of the global prison population. However, their numbers are growing and at a faster rate than those of men.
Since 2000, the number of women and girls in prison has grown by almost 60%. The global female prison population increased by more than 100,000 in the 10 years to the end of 2020.
What is driving the increase?
Offences committed by women are often closely linked to poverty, and frequently a means of survival to support their family and children.
Research by Penal Reform International, Women Beyond Walls, and the Global Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status found that laws criminalise acts of survival and that women are disproportionately affected because they are over-represented among the poorest sectors of society.
Poverty, abuse and discriminatory laws are driving the huge rise in the number of women in prison globally. Women are disproportionately jailed for petty theft, such as stealing food for babies and children, for begging, in the “war on drugs”, and for working in the informal economy.
In some countries, laws criminalising abortion, adultery, sexual misconduct and prostitution almost exclusively affect women. The fact that they receive a prison sentence is often also related to poverty and the inability to pay fines for petty offences or to afford bail.
Which countries have the most women in prison?
The US has the largest number of female prisoners, with 174,607. China has 145,000, plus an unknown number of women and girls in pre-trial detention and “administrative detention” (when a person is held without trial), followed by Brazil (50,441), Russia (39,153), Thailand (33,057), India (23,772), the Philippines (17,121), Turkey (16,581) Vietnam (15,152), Mexico (13,841) and Indonesia (13,044).
In 17 jurisdictions around the world, women and girls make up more than 10% of the prison population. Those with the highest proportions of female prisoners are Hong Kong-China (19.7%), Qatar (14.7%), Macau-China (14.1%), Laos (13.7%), Myanmar (12.3%), Vietnam (12.1%), Brunei Darussalam (11.9%), United Arab Emirates (11.7%), Thailand (11.5%) and Guatemala (11.3%).
In England and Wales, there are 3,566 women in prison – 4% of the total prison population – but numbers are expected to rise to 4,200 by 2027. In Italy, according to data from the Ministry of Justice, in November 2025 there were 2,718 women in prison, with 26 children. In Europe, 94,472 women are detained, while in Australia there are 3,473 women in prison, amounting to about 8% of the total prison population.
Which countries have seen the biggest rise in the female prison population?
Even allowing for normal population growth over the past 25 years, the surge in the number of female prisoners per 100,000 people still shows a remarkable increase –with El Salvador and Cambodia rising more than sixfold, and Indonesia and Turkey more than fivefold.
How many women are on death row?
The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty estimated in 2023 that were between 500 and 1,000 women on death row in at least 42 countries
The countries that execute the most women are also the countries that execute the most people in general, namely China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. According to Amnesty International, in 2024 an unknown number of women were executed in China, two were put to death in Egypt, 30 in Iran, one in Iraq, nine in Saudi Arabia and two in Yemen.
Hands off Cain is well aware of the data relating to Iran and can confirm that at least 35 women were executed in Iran in 2024, and 56 as of 30 November 2025.
There is no accurate data available for those countries that execute the most, or for others such as North Korea, Vietnam and Qatar, but analysis is available on the 15 other countries with the most women on death row.
The 2 main crimes for which women are sentenced to death are murder and drug trafficking. Countries with a mandatory death penalty for murder, or that do not recognise gender-based violence as a mitigating circumstance, are more likely to have a high number of women on death row and more executions.
Also, countries that severely criminalise drug trafficking, such as those in the Gulf and south-east Asia, have a high proportion of women on death row.
Is prison suitable for women?
Many experts and campaigners argue that prison is not a suitable punishment for a large number of women who break the law. Most are locked up for non-violent crimes; in England and Wales, for example, 72% of female prison admissions in 2020 fit this category. Women frequently experience a “revolving door” of short prison sentences – too brief to engage in meaningful education, training or work opportunities. In 2017, 77% of custodial sentences for women in England and Wales were 12 months or less, with a 71% reoffending rate after such short sentences.
Women face unique challenges in a system built by men for men. Up to 80% of women in prison worldwide have mental health problems and a history of abuse, and in Europe, suicide rates for women in prison are nine times higher than for the general population, according to the World Health Organization.
Awareness of, and treatment for, mental health conditions remain limited in many countries.
Most women should not be in prison at all, according to Sabrina Mahtani, a Zambian-British lawyer and member of Women Beyond Walls, a global collaborative organisation dedicated to combating the incarceration of women and girls. “After 20 years of working with women in prison, and seeing how this plays out across the world, I don’t think that prison works. It’s really harmful and I think we need to radically rethink the way we do justice.”
She added: “Most of these women don’t represent a danger to society and so we should be looking at other options. We still somehow believe that prison is a place of rehabilitation where bad people go in and come out good. We’re seeing that vulnerable and marginalised people go in and come out more traumatised.”
In response to rising numbers of incarcerated women and a lack of standards reflecting their needs, the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners (known as the Bangkok Rules) were adopted by the UN general assembly in December 2010. The rules oblige states to develop non-custodial sanctions and to ensure gender-sensitive treatment in prisons.
What about female prisoners’ children?
It is estimated that 19,000 children live in prison with a parent, most often their mother, and many others are separated from them. Just little under 1.5 million children worldwide have the mother in prison.
Many countries allow newborns and young children to remain in prison with their mothers until a certain age. In Italy, for example, the limit is up to 3 years of age.
There are different “schools of thought” on this subject. While initially allowing a mother who has committed a crime to keep her very young children with her in prison, on the basis that not forcing the separation of mother and child is a positive approach, the question immediately arises as to whether raising a child in prison could be even more traumatic (for the mother and for the child) than immediate separation from the mother. There is also another school of thought that believes that, since there are few mothers with children, and they are usually responsible for minor or medium-level offences, a system should be found to keep them out of prison. This school of thought is opposed by those who believe that guaranteeing non-arrest for young women who are pregnant or have small children amounts to guaranteeing a sort of immunity from prosecution that is difficult to justify to communities that demand “security” or just “accountability”.
Another effect, which could be described as “collateral”, of the condition of women within the prison system is that its effects can extend, in a serious way, even after the sentence has been served. In fact, it is not uncommon for a woman to lose custody of her children following a period of detention, even a short one.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/nov/27/how-many-women-are-in-prison-and-on-death-row-around-the-world-in-charts
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/nov/27/women-in-prison-rising-global-crisis-sexual-violence-forced-labour
https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/resources/downloads/world_female_imprisonment_list_5th_edition.pdf
