India - Compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (LOIPR) - Death Penalty - September 2025
Country: India
Partners: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Issues: Death Penalty, Gender-Based Violence, Women's Rights
Mechanism: UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
Report Type: List of Issues Prior to Reporting
The Committee last reviewed India's compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Womenin2014. This report addresses India's compliance with the Convention as it pertains to issues related to the death penalty, which the Committee did not specifically address in its2014 Concluding Observations.
India has not abolished the death penalty, and it does not reserve the death penalty for only the most serious crimes. In recently enacted amendments to its penal code, India expanded the scope of offenses for which the death penalty may be imposed from 15 to 18, including for offenses not entailing an intentional killing. As of December 2024, 17 women are on death row, with courts handing down eight death sentences for women during 2024 alone. This trend demonstrates a sharp increase in the number of death sentences Indian courts have imposed on women since 2016.
The Committee previously highlighted a number of issues concerning violence against women, gender-based discrimination, early and forced marriages, and lack of equality in marriage and family relations in India. Despite the Committee’s recommendations to implement the Justice Verma Committee recommendations, which had rejected further application of the death penalty for sexual violence, India has proceeded instead to expand the scope of death penalty, including for crimes of sexual violence. Persistent discrimination against women also potentially leaves women vulnerable to adverse treatment in criminal proceedings and violations of fair trial rights.
This report discusses India’s continued use of the death penalty and the following issues regarding discrimination against women in the context of the imposition of death penalty, including India’s failure to address gender-based violence, which increases women’s risk of coming into conflict with the law and facing death penalty, persistent discriminatory practices and gender biases and stereotypes against women that increase vulnerabilities of women in the criminal legal system and adversely impact their rights in legal proceedings, and detention conditions for women that do not comply with international human rights standards.
