PRISON POPULATIONS as Maˉori.177 Drug policies can also disproportionately impact minority women. In Canada for example, more than half of all women serving sentences for drug-related offences in federal prisons are Indigenous and black women.178 (See Foreign national prisoners, minorities and Indigenous peoples, below). It is well-documented that prisons are designed and run for the majority male prison population – from prisons’ architecture and security procedures to healthcare, family contact, work and training. A report by the United States Department of Justice found three main areas where the needs of women held in federal prisons are still not being met: trauma treatment programming, pregnancy programming, and feminine hygiene.179 Women continued to experience abusive conditions during birth; in Australia for example, a woman was left to give birth alone in her cell.180 In Russia, inspectors found that women were working 18 hours a day stitching garments.181 Various progressive initiatives have been introduced to implement the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules). In Florida, in the US, the Dignity for Incarcerated Women Act was passed which, inter alia, guarantees that women have free and unlimited access to hygiene products and prohibits male staff from performing strip and cavity searches on women.182 The Brazilian Federal Supreme Court decided that pregnant women and mothers with children under the age of 12 will be placed under house arrest instead of in pre-trial detention, if they are accused of non-violent crimes. The judgment gave authorities 60 days to apply the order, which will affect at least 4,500 women who are currently detained.183 The government in Zimbabwe announced plans for an open prison for women in prison with their children.184 In most countries however, efforts to implement the Bangkok Rules remain fragmented and gradual. RECOMMENDATION 09 When women are sentenced, the court should take the context of the criminal conduct into account, as well as any experience of victimisation or any caretaking responsibilities. States should ensure that prison policy and practice comply consistently with the Bangkok Rules. Foreign national prisoners, minorities and Indigenous peoples People from minority groups continue to be discriminated against within criminal justice systems and are disproportionately represented within prison populations worldwide. Foreign nationals are a growing population in many prison systems, although there is considerable variation between countries. For example, they represent 87 per cent of all prisoners in the United Arab Emirates and just 0.3 per cent of prisoners in the Philippines.185 This variation can largely be attributed to factors such as geographical location and immigration policies. In Europe, foreign nationals make up 21 per cent of the prison population, on average.186 Foreign nationals are over-represented in comparison to their numbers in the general population in part because of disadvantages they face during the criminal justice process, such as increased targeting by police, language barriers, a lack of access to legal aid, and discriminatory sentencing, as well as increasingly punitive approaches to immigration-related offences. Foreign nationals’ experience of prison is characterised by isolation, language barriers, limited or no family contact, discrimination and a limited understanding of the prison regime and broader criminal justice procedures. In addition, they face challenges linked to their immigration status – such as deportation – as well as difficulty in accessing rehabilitation programmes. One distinctive right that foreign nationals have is access to consular support, although diplomatic missions are often not able or willing to provide this.187 The FORINER project was funded by the European Commission and lasted for two years. It provided foreign national prisoners from EU countries with access to education offered by their home country. An evaluation found that the majority of participants believed that these courses would reduce the likelihood of recidivism and make it easier for them to find a job after prison. More than half the students indicated that they hoped participation in the course would improve their relationship with their family and friends.190 Countries have addressed these challenges in different ways, including the provision of a picture book for prisoners to aid communication,188 prisoners of the same nationality mentoring new arrivals, the provision of video conferencing to enable contact with family abroad, and training in different languages for staff. In Austria, which has a large number of prisoners who are non-German speakers, a private company supplies online interpretation services to prison staff between 8am and 6pm for a handful of pre-defined languages.189 There is a large proportion of foreign national women prisoners held in various countries and regions globally, mainly for drug-related offences and for breaching immigration laws – including many migrant workers. For example, in the United Arab Emirates, as of June 2018 there were nine women under sentence of death; all but one were foreign nationals, and most were migrant workers.191 In Hong Kong and Macau, which have the largest proportions of female prisoners globally, the majority of women are foreign nationals; most have been Penal Reform International and Thailand Institute of Justice | Global Prison Trends 2019 | 21