IPRT submission to the 88th Pre-Sessional Working Group of CEDAW

8th September 2023

On 8 September 2023, IPRT made a submission to the 88th Pre-Sessional Working Group on UN CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) in advance of the Irish State’s review under the Convention, expected in May 2024. 

We welcomed the opportunity to inform the Pre-Sessional Working Group’s List of Issues Prior to Reporting (LOIPR) for Ireland’s eighth periodic review under the UN CEDAW. 

The submission provides updates on the relevant recommendations made by the Committee following Ireland’s combined sixth and seventh periodic reviews under CEDAW in 2017, namely: overcrowding in female prisons; monitoring and oversight; complaints procedures; and the overrepresentation of Traveller women in places of deprivation of liberty. 

IPRT regrets that the Irish State provided no updates relating to these in its follow-up information in June 2020. 

The submission highlights several other issues that amount to discrimination of women, including:  

• The disproportionate number of female committals to prison on short sentences;  
• The disproportionate number of female committals to prison for non-payment of a court-ordered fine; 
• The disproportionate use of pre-trial detention for women,  
• Barriers to reintegration, including the absence of an open prison for women;  
• The treatment of transgender women in prison; and  
• The implementation of penal policy relating to women.  

As an overarching recommendation, IPRT urges the Committee to ask the State to explain what steps it is taking to ensure that Ireland is in full compliance with the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-Custodial Measures for Women Offenders (‘the Bangkok Rules’) – the principal aims of which are to reduce women’s imprisonment and address their specific needs – as well as the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (‘the Nelson Mandela Rules’). 

Read IPRT's submission to the Pre-Sessional Working Group on UN CEDAW here.

See submissions from organisations in Ireland on the UN website here.