The human rights organisation Respect-Protect-Fulfill, together with an invited gender expert, has presented an analytical report on discrimination against women in places of detention in Belarus in 2020–2025. The presentation took place on February 17, 2026.
The document is based on interviews with former detainees. The authors documented discriminatory practices in Belarusian penitentiary institutions and assessed them in terms of compliance with international law standards.
Key areas of the study include inadequate detention conditions, including lack of hygiene and violations of the right to health, degrading treatment and sexualised harassment by staff, the detention of pregnant women and women who have recently given birth, uniforms and forced labour. Particular attention is paid to intersecting forms of discrimination, as well as the absence of effective mechanisms for appealing violations within national procedures.
For the preparation of the report, the rights defenders, together with the gender expert, interviewed women deprived of liberty on various grounds and for different terms in 2020–2025. The testimonies relate to temporary detention facilities in Minsk, Brest, Mahilyow, Homyel and Rechytsa, the Centre for the Isolation of Offenders in Minsk, pre-trial detention centres in Minsk and the Minsk Region, Brest, Zhodzina and Homyel, as well as two correctional colonies.
The report emphasises that although detention conditions for men in Belarus also remain inadequate, equally poor conditions may have a more severe impact on women due to biological and socio-cultural differences, as well as gender power imbalances.
According to the authors, discriminatory detention conditions for women in places of deprivation of liberty remain a systemic problem. In addition to political prisoners — of whom there were at least 167 in the country as of the end of 2025 — thousands of women are held in institutions where they face unsafe or degrading conditions on a daily basis.
The issue has previously drawn the attention of international bodies, including the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. However, as noted in the report, the Committee’s insufficient awareness of the situation of women prisoners in Belarus and the lack of real opportunities for them to challenge detention conditions complicate the submission of complaints.
The authors expect that the document will be used in the preparation of submissions to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and other international bodies. The full version of the report has been published on the organisation’s website.