Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls. International Women’s Day 2026
Lilly Lewis, Women’s Involvement Advisor, One Small Thing
This International Women’s Day, Lilly explores the UN’s theme, ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls’, and discusses why it’s vital systems are centred in survivors.
When I read this year’s International Women’s Day theme ‘Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls.’, I thought about all the women I’ve worked with over the years whose voices go unheard – who aren’t included in conversations around driving change for women and girls.
This year’s theme calls for justice systems that are centred on survivors. Women involved in the justice system are survivors long before they are ever labelled ‘offenders’ and often have deep experiences of trauma. Over half have experienced domestic abuse. Many were children in care themselves. Yet when they enter the justice system, that context is often not considered.
“When we punish without addressing trauma, we risk repeating cycles across generations.”
As Women’s Involvement Advisor at One Small Thing, I work to ensure that women’s lived experience shapes national conversations about justice. I advocate for trauma-informed approaches. I push for better contact between mothers and children, and I speak openly about the long-term harm short custodial sentences cause to families.
My work as a Women’s Involvement Advisor isn’t just a job for me, it’s personal. I know what it feels like to be judged by a system that doesn’t see your whole story, and I know what it feels like to carry trauma and still be expected to function as if it has had no impact on me. And I know how easily women’s pain gets misread as defiance, anger or aggression.
Instead of asking, “What happened to you?” the system asks, “What’s wrong with you?”
I’ve seen women breached for missing appointments when they were leaving toxic relationships and violence. I’ve seen mothers lose housing because of short prison sentences and then lose their children. I’ve seen women assessed as ‘high risk’ without anyone understanding what they have had to survive. That isn’t justice. That’s failure.
The justice system in England and Wales was never designed around women’s realities. Women’s involvement in the justice system is often about survival.
“When systems ignore women’s lived experience, they deepen inequality instead of dismantling it.”
And then there’s stigma and the shame. The expectations placed on women as carers and mothers leads to us being judged more harshly and labelled as ‘failures’ if we don’t live up to society’s expectations. I’ve felt that weight myself - it’s heavy, and it breeds silence.
Considering these experiences, it’s vital that systems are built to support survivors. This means ensuring trauma informed approaches are embedded in culture and practice, not just as a tick box in a policy, that women’s community services are sustainably funded, and that women with lived experience are able to lead. Because the women I work with are not statistics. They are resilient and creative women capable of developing solutions to the challenges we see in the justice system. They deserve to have their expertise platformed and valued as key sources of insight and knowledge.
If we want a justice system that centres the needs of survivors, then we must include the voices of criminalised women - women on probation, mothers separated from their children through imprisonment, and survivors who have been continuously failed by systems. For me, this work is not about theory. It’s about action that makes a tangible change to women’s lives, and ensures that the next woman who enters the justice system is met with compassion instead of judgement, and is supported to rebuild her life. It is about refusing to let women be defined by their worst moment.
Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL women and girls.
By Lilly Lewis, Women’s Involvement Advisor at One Small Thing
