Around the world, millions of women are beaten and incarcerated by government authorities. Their cases may range from failing to follow religious dress codes and conduct to murder, parricide, drug smuggling and kidnapping. Many women commit these inevitable crimes due to many traumatic experiences that continually haunt them. Other experts point out to the flaws and weaknesses of the judicial and penal systems while some of the extremists praise the impartiality of the verdict.
The intense hardships of these women in prison differ from country to country. Most death penalties are meted out in countries with strict observance of their laws. Their laws, of course, are not necessarily similar to the United States laws. They differ in the concept of due process in which the suspect is innocent until proved guilty. Bear in mind that these far-fetched countries around the world execute common criminals in observance of their local laws, regardless of the gender or country of origin.
The international human rights groups have voiced concerns regarding this matter from a rights-based perspective. Female inmates have been cruelly mistreated in unbearable prison conditions, contemplating their fate in the last days of their lives. They wait for the hope to repeal court decisions that led them to death row. The freedom of these women is curtailed by the fact that they have violated the law and they deserve to suffer the consequences.
Shariah Court of Saudi Arabia metes out harsh death penalties as rape victims suffer and die in disgrace. The religious law has a severe justice system where the female victim must be punished for being out with men not related to them and the inability to provide valid witnesses prior and after the crime, regardless of the fact that she was the victim of the crime. These views have lead to speculations that Islamic authorities place little gravity for women who deserve fair treatment in judicial process. Such women receive 50 lashes a day from the time of the proclamation of a verdict and remain incarcerated due to the pending decision of the Islamic court to decapitate her.
Another woman, a British national, Samantha Orobator, was sentenced to the death penalty by firing squad in the Republic country of Laos. She was caught with a pound of heroin stashed in her traveling bags. That amount of heroin, according to Laotian laws is equivalent to capital punishment. Aside from this ordeal, the woman is pregnant and about to give birth. The UK diplomatic authorities have extended their appeal to the Laotian authorities to lessen the penalty to life imprisonment but neither arrived to change the verdict.
Death row inmates, such as Christa Pike, now aged 30, remain in maximum security. She committed a crime of killing a friend when she was 18. She was sentenced for death row at Tennessee Prison for Women located in Nashville. In that facility, she only spends one hour per day outside her cell. During showers and recreation exercises, she is fitted with heavy shackles.
The most frightening ordeal is sexual abuse in detention and justice systems that fail to meet international standards of due process. This is the case of Samar Saed Abdullah in present-day Iraq. Confirmed reports quote that she was tormented into confessing a role in the massacre of her own family. Apparently, her husband did the crime and authorities extracted a theory that she was an accomplice. Thoughts of dying and grief of betrayal from her loved one tortures her endlessly. She was tried and convicted in one day.
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