At its eighteenth session (Vienna, 16-24 April 2009), the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, aware of the fact that many existing prison facilities worldwide were designed primarily for male prisoners, whereas the number of women prisoners has increased significantly over the years, and considering that women prisoners are one of the vulnerable groups that have specific needs and requirements, adopted resolution 18/1 entitled "Supplementary Rules Specific to the Treatment of Women in Detention and in Custodial and Non-Custodial Setting".
With this resolution, the Commission requested the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to convene in 2009 an open-ended intergovernmental expert group meeting to develop, consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules), supplementary rules specific to the treatment of women in detention and in custodial and non-custodial settings, and invited Member States and other donors to provide extrabudgetary contributions for that purpose, in accordance with the rules and procedures of the United Nations.
The expert group meeting was also requested to draw upon the results of the work of the expert round-table meeting on the development of rules for the treatment of women prisoners and non-custodial measures for women offenders held in Bangkok from 2 to 6 February 2009 and to submit the outcome of its work to the Twelfth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, to be held in Salvador, Brazil, from 12 to 19 April 2010;
In operative paragraph 9 resolution 18/1, the Commission welcomed the offer by the Government of Thailand to act as host to the expert group meeting, which will be held in Bangkok, Thailand, from 23 to 26 November 2009
Provisional agenda of the meeting (PDF)
Information for participants (PDF)
Draft United Nations rules for the treatment of women prisoners and non-custodial measures for women offenders (E/CN.15/2009/CRP8) (PDF - English original version)
Arabic translation (PDF; Please note that this is not an official UN translation) Chinese translation (PDF; Please note that this is not an official UN translation) French Translation (PDF) Russian Translation and commentary (PDF; Please note that this is not an official UN translation
The meeting will be held in English only
