15 October 2026
Words and Illustrations: Sergio Ortíz Borbolla
Erenia Cerdas, 38, was living on the streets and begging for money to fund her drug habit when, in late 2021, someone she knew offered her $100 to deliver some wood to the Cocorí prison in central Costa Rica. He told her they would be used in some craft workshops. Erenia, who had already been through 16 rehabilitation centers and had lost custody of her children a decade before, had little to lose. She found her way to the prison, but when she went through the checkpoint, guards discovered that among the wood there were packages containing five kilos of marijuana. She said she didn’t know where it all came from, but she was arrested immediately.
Prisons in Latin America are crowded with women convicted of small time drug trafficking charges. In fact, they are the fastest-growing population in the region’s penitentiaries. Globally, the rise has been nearly 60 percent since 2000, a stark difference compared to the 22 percent increase for men, according to the sixth edition of the World Female Imprisonment List, produced by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at Birkbeck, University of London.
The United States, Thailand, and El Salvador top the list of countries with the highest rate of incarcerated women. The Bahamas, and Uruguay follow closely behind.
One of the reasons for this, according to Coletta Youngers, an expert in drug policy and incarceration, is that judges tend to punish women more harshly.
“I think that is largely due to discrimination and stigma. Women who engage in illicit activities are considered to have defied the expectations society has of them, for example, as caregivers,” she says.
But over the last decade, some Latin American countries have been experimenting with potential alternatives to incarceration. Costa Rica is one of them.
In 2013, after a study by the country’s Prosecutor’s Office confirmed that the vast majority of incarcerated women had been convicted after attempting to bring drugs into prisons, the country reformed its Penal Code. Article 77bis introduced a gender perspective and reduced sentences for women in vulnerable conditions, particularly those who have dependents or are elderly.
Under the new law, the judge in charge of the case can consider other options to incarceration as alternatives to repair the harm done. These range from house arrest, assisted liberty, restricted liberty with an electronic monitor, community service, and even more comprehensive approaches such as restorative justice for women without a prior criminal record.
“When we began reviewing drug-related cases in 2012, we detected that 98 percent of the accused were female heads of household in highly vulnerable situations,” says Zhuyem Molina, professor, judge, and former public defender in Costa Rica, who was part of the law’s drafting process.
“When we began interviewing them, they all spoke of hunger, of coercion resulting from the vulnerable conditions they were in. When we managed to provide scientific and technical criteria and support the Bill with studies, we were able to put those factors on the table and put humanity on a drug trafficking profile that for a long time had no face.”
In Costa Rica, as in many countries, women tend to play two types of roles in the criminal world, particularly within drug trafficking organizations. On one hand, there are those who lead organizations, who tend to handle logistics and finances. And there are those who play more passive, invisible roles, such as retail and transport, for example. The latter are, according to experts, the ones who tend to be more criminalized.
“When I asked the women, ‘Why didn’t you say this guy had threatened you?’, they would tell me, ‘How am I going to speak up if that was the person I slept with, who, with one call, would give an order and then I would end up dead? If I took that risk, who would take care of my children?'” explains the lawyer.
Two months after the law was enacted, more than 120 women were released from prison and reunited with their children. More than a decade later, many continue to benefit.
Erenia is one of them. When she was convicted of drug trafficking in 2022, the state-appointed lawyer requested an alternative justice process be applied due to her vulnerable conditions.
The judge in charge of the case ruled that Erenia receive treatment to help with her addictions and then provide community service for two years. Today she lives with her youngest child and says she has a support network.
“I always wanted to change my life and get off drugs, but I didn’t have anyone to help me,” she explains.
“Restorative justice is a source of benefit for many people. Sometimes they believe we don’t deserve a second chance, and this system allows us to prove that we are capable of repairing our harm in another way, becoming a good person.”
Erenia’s story Is not uncommon, although it does not always have the same ending.
The first time Berta Robles (not her real name), originally from Nicaragua, was offered to bring drugs into a prison, she didn’t think twice. After living in Costa Rica for 20 years undocumented, surviving through sex work to support her five children, the offer to make more money was too tempting to refuse. The man who convinced her told her that bringing the drugs in would be easy.
“I wasn’t made for that; the guards noticed right away,” she recalls now.
Due to her vulnerable condition, they applied the alternative law and sent her home. But the debt she accumulated with the person who gave her the drugs left her in an even more vulnerable situation than before. She tried again. In 2019, she was sentenced to six years in prison. Today she shares a cell with 25 other women, far from her children.
“I just want to get out of here; prison isn’t the best place to change,” she says.
More than 10 years after the approval of the law in Costa Rica, there’s a big question around its future in a context of growing criminality, violence, and calls for more “tough on crime” strategies.
The answer is complex.
In recent years, security has become one of the main concerns for the population in Costa Rica, primarily due to a rise in the homicide rate and the expanding influence of criminal organizations, who benefit from the country’s strategic location as a transit zone for illicit drugs.
This context, experts say, has contributed to the election of Laura Fernández to the presidency, with promises to implement more “tough on crime” measures. While Fernández managed to lower the homicide rate by early 2026, the incarceration rate continues to rise. The strategy responds to a trend toward more punitive measures to combat drug trafficking that is gaining more followers in the region.
Ernesto Cortés, a specialist in prisons and drug policy in Costa Rica, says the model doesn’t work in the long term.
“The way the success of drug policies is measured, solely through seizures and arrests of people, is completely wrong. One way to improve health is by reducing the violence generated by the illegality of the market. Increasing incarceration doesn’t work, nor does it decrease violence. The United States is a perfect example of that,” he explained.
Meanwhile, activists continue to promote restorative justice as a sustainable alternative.
“It is not a soft approach or impunity. It is repairing harm to a person that can have a profound impact on their community; these are processes with a lot of control and responsibility through models that can generate many changes,” says Jovanna Calderón Altamirano, head of the Restorative Justice Governing Office of the Judicial Branch of Costa Rica.
The key, everyone agrees, lies in implementation. Colombia, for example, where approximately half of the incarcerated women are in prison for drug-related crimes, passed a law in 2022 that allows some women heads of household to serve their sentences by working outside of prison. Since the law started to be implemented in October 2023, about 260 women have benefited.
Social organizations say the law alone is not enough; they ask for more resources and support for women who could benefit from it.
“It is very positive that many women have the possibility of leaving prison, but a key issue is what happens after their release. When they regain their freedom, the women do their social service, but what money will they have? And how will they support their families? There is still a lot to improve,” says Claudia Cardona, human rights activist, director, and co-founder of Mujeres Libres, who participated in drafting the law.
The big question is how much support programs that challenge the increasingly popular punitive strategies in the region can receive.
This text was originally published in In.Visibles in March 2024 and updated in May 2026.
