PRI at the 70th Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70)
The seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) will take place at United Nations Headquarters in New York from 9 to 19 March 2026. CSW is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality, the rights and the empowerment of women. PRI will be organising and co-sponsoring a number of side events.
Side events:
Co-sponsors: Permanent Mission of Colombia to the United Nations, Permanent Mission of Liechtenstein to the United Nations, Permanent Mission of Thailand to the United Nations, Permanent Mission of Romania to the United Nations, UN WOMEN, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office (PBPSO), the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ), the United Nations Latin American Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders (ILANUD), and The Cyrus R. Vance Center for International Justice.
Programme
Moderated by Olivia Rope, Executive Director, Penal Reform International
Welcoming remarks:
- Themba Mahleka, Associate Director, Justice for All, Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies
Opening remarks:
- Arlene B. Tickner, Ambassador at-Large for Gender Issues and Feminist Global Policy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Colombia
- Ambassador H.E. Mr. Cherdchai Chaivaivid, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Thailand to the United Nations
Keynote address:
- Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Discussants:
-
Dawn Harrington, Executive Director of Free Hearts and Director of Special Projects for the National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls
-
Ms. Xiaohong Li, Representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) New York Liaison Office
- Ms Chontit Chuenurah, Chief of the Program on the Implementation of the Bangkok Rules and Treatment of Offenders at the Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ)
Interventions from the floor
Closing remarks:
- Sabrina Mahtani, Founder, Women Beyond Walls
- Doreen N. Kyazze (Penal Reform International Uganda)
- Ambika Satkunanathan (Justice Future Collaborative/Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network)
- Anne Applebaum (The Advocates for Human Rights)
- Laura Nyirinkindi (Former chair and member of the UN Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls)
- Lunch will be provided.
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 marginalised and disadvantaged backgrounds.The discussion will highlight gendered pathways to criminalisation, 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.
- Ambika Satkunanathan
- Doreen N Kyazze
- Laura Nyirinkindi
- Sabrina Butler Smith (Witness to Innocence)
- Moderator: Sabrina Mahtani (Women Beyond Walls)
Zoom
- 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 lived experience to inform policy and implementation.
- Moderator: Romina Canessa – Women in Prison Network & Vance Center for International Justice
- Keynote: Patsilí Toledo Vásquez – Member of the UN CEDAW Committee (2025-2028)
- Woman with lived experience: Cheryl Wilkins, Co-Director of The Center for Justice, Columbia University
- Panel – One speaker per co-sponsoring organization (approx. 7 minutes each)
- Maïssa Hubert Chakour, EQUIS Justicia para las Mujeres
- Angélica Beltrán, Corporación Humanas
- Sabrina Mahtani, Women Beyond Walls
- Ambika Satkunanathan, PRI
- Maria Fernanda Rodriguez, former Vice-Minister of Justice of Argentina, lead of the technical secretariat of the Ibero-American Alliance for Access to Justice (IBA)
- Douglas Durán, ILANUD