Prisoners Abroad is launching a focused campaign to shine a light on the experiences of women affected by imprisonment overseas.

In the decades Prisoners Abroad has been supporting people in prison abroad and helping them rebuild their lives on return to the UK, we have seen repeatedly that women experience imprisonment and its aftereffects differently and often far more acutely than men. Global prison systems are largely designed with men in mind, leaving women struggling with fundamental needs such as basic hygiene, pregnancy care, safety, and access to appropriate physical and mental health support both during and after a sentence.

Across the world, the number of women entering prison systems is rising – a trend that we have seen reflected in the number of women needing our support:

• Women currently account for 19% of the total number of British people we are supporting in prison abroad.
• This is an increase of 13% from the previous year and just 5% three years ago.

As these numbers increase, so too does the need to ensure that women, and the family members affected alongside them, receive the specialist support required to survive what is often a traumatic and debilitating experience – through detention, trial, imprisonment, and resettlement.

We have been lucky enough to have the involvement of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Richard Ratcliffe with this campaign. Their voices carry deep relevance in the human rights sector, and Nazanin’s lived experience offers a vital and authentic connection to the realities faced by women in prison.

“For a prisoner, nothing is more painful than feeling forgotten. It was only later on when I came home that I learnt about the number of people who had carried us in their thoughts, stood by us, cared and campaigned for us. That solidarity saved me, and it is only right that we now do the same for others. The path to freedom was long and uncertain, filled with frustration and despair, but I did not walk it alone…. Freedom and life beyond prison remains a very precious thing.” - Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

This work comes at an important moment for us as an organisation, as we expand our advocacy work in line with our 2025-30 strategy, Support. Action. Hope.

The campaign will run over the coming months, sharing and elevating women’s voices, explaining statistics from our client group, and examining how women affected by the criminal justice system are being portrayed in the media.

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