Gender justice cannot end at the prison gate

This article is authored by Mousumi Roy, columnist, politics, culture and economic history.

India's conversations about gender equality have largely excluded women in prison. They rarely feature in debates about empowerment, rights and social justice. Public policy and feminist advocacy rightly focus on women's access to education, employment, political representation, safety and economic independence. These discussions rarely extend behind prison walls. This omission reveals an uncomfortable limitation in how society decides which women deserve dignity, protection and equality.

Gender equality (Pixabay)

According to the latest available official figures, India's prisons held 15,825 female undertrial prisoners at the end of 2023. These were women who had not been convicted and were awaiting the completion of their trials. The same data show that India's prisons accommodated 530,333 people against a sanctioned capacity of 439,119. In an overcrowded system, the particular needs of women who form a small minority of the prison population can easily become an afterthought.

Imprisonment does more than take away a person's liberty. It can erase her social identity. Once a woman enters prison, she is often no longer seen as a mother, daughter, caregiver, worker or citizen. She is reduced to the label of offender. Her treatment is then understood solely as the consequence of an individual moral failure, obscuring the poverty, violence and institutional inequalities that may have shaped her journey into custody.

Many incarcerated women come from economically and socially marginalised communities. Some cannot afford effective legal representation or satisfy bail conditions. Others lack the documents, property, family support or social connections required to navigate an intimidating legal system. Even when accused of relatively minor or non-violent offences, they may spend prolonged periods in detention before their cases are decided.

For a poor woman, even a short period in custody can be devastating. She may lose her livelihood, housing and contact with her children. If she was the family's primary caregiver, her imprisonment may interrupt her children's education and push the household further into poverty. She may eventually be acquitted, but the economic and social punishment can continue long after her release.

Women's pathways into offending can also involve domestic violence, coercion, trafficking, sexual abuse or financial dependence. Some women become implicated in offences committed by husbands or other family members.

Recognising these circumstances does not mean denying personal responsibility. It means acknowledging that justice cannot be fair if it treats profoundly unequal circumstances as though they were identical. Histories of violence and coercion should inform bail decisions, sentencing, rehabilitation and the conditions under which women are held.

India's prisons have historically been designed around men, who constitute the overwhelming majority of prisoners. Women's requirements are consequently treated as secondary. Access to gynaecological care, reproductive health care, mental-health support and appropriate nutrition may be inadequate. When sanitary products, clean water, privacy and disposal facilities are unavailable, menstruation becomes a recurring source of indignity. Pregnant women and nursing mothers require specialised care, but its availability differs considerably across prisons and states.

The situation of imprisoned mothers raises further concerns. Some young children live in prisons because no suitable caregiver is available outside. Although these children have committed no offence, they may spend important developmental years in restrictive surroundings. Other mothers are separated from their children and have limited opportunities to visit or communicate regularly. The Supreme Court has issued guidelines concerning the education, health and development of children living with imprisoned mothers. Nevertheless, formal protections mean little without consistent implementation, adequate funding and independent monitoring.

Women also tend to face harsher social consequences after release. Patriarchal expectations portray women as naturally nurturing, obedient and morally respectable. A formerly incarcerated woman is judged not only for breaking the law but also for violating accepted ideas of womanhood. Families may reject her, employers may refuse to hire her, and landlords may be unwilling to accommodate her. Rehabilitation becomes nearly impossible when society denies her the means to rebuild her life.

This stigma helps explain why women prisoners attract limited public sympathy. They do not fit comfortably into familiar portrayals of women either as blameless victims requiring protection or as successful individuals overcoming discrimination. Their lives may involve both vulnerability and agency. Rather than engaging with this complexity, public discourse often treats them as undeserving of feminist concern.

A meaningful commitment to gender equality cannot depend on respectability, innocence or popularity. The constitutional guarantees of equality and personal dignity do not disappear at the prison gate. Recognising prisoners' rights does not require ignoring the harm caused by crime. It requires ensuring that punishment remains lawful, proportionate and humane.

India has frameworks on which reform can build. The ministry of home affairs' Model Prison Manual, 2016, contains provisions concerning women prisoners and their children.

The Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act, 2023, places greater emphasis on rehabilitation and correctional administration. Section 479 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita also provides a route to releasing eligible undertrial prisoners who have spent a prescribed portion of the maximum possible sentence in detention. But states administer prisons, and the value of these measures ultimately depends on implementation.

Reform should begin with stronger legal aid, routine reviews of undertrial detention and greater use of bail or suitable non-custodial measures for minor offences, particularly for pregnant women and primary caregivers. Prison budgets must adequately provide for menstrual hygiene, reproductive and maternal health care, counselling, nutrition, childcare, and contact with families. Independent inspections and credible grievance procedures are essential to prevent custodial neglect and abuse.

Rehabilitation programmes must also move beyond stereotypically feminine activities such as sewing and handicrafts. Women should have access to education, digital training, recognised qualifications, and employment assistance that supports genuine economic independence. Former prisoners should help design these programmes because their experience can expose institutional failures that official reports overlook.

Women remain outside India's gender equality agenda not because they are unreachable, but because recognising them is inconvenient. However, a movement committed to leaving no woman behind must be prepared to look behind prison walls. Incarcerated women are not exceptions to the struggle for equality. They are among those for whom that struggle is most urgent. India cannot claim to have achieved gender justice while dignity and equality remain conditional upon freedom and social approval. Gender justice cannot end where imprisonment begins.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Mousumi Roy, columnist, politics, culture and economic history.