Saudi Arabia’s escalating use of the death penalty over the past decade has consistently disadvantaged women, particularly migrant domestic workers, the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights (ESOHR) and ALQST for Human Rights said today. They called for urgent action from the Saudi authorities, labour-sending states and international partners to protect women from multiple layers of injustice in capital cases.

Reports published simultaneously by ESOHR and ALQST for International Women’s Day examine together the country’s use of the death penalty through a gendered and intersectional lens. They show how women in Saudi Arabia, especially foreign women, face overlapping forms of discrimination, rights violations and structural barriers at every stage of the process, within a defective judicial system.

ESOHR’s report, Women's Executions in Saudi Arabia: From Fragile Protection to Systematic Violations, examines the scope and scale of women’s executions in the country over the past decade. It finds that between King Salman’s accession to power in January 2015 and December 2025, a period marked by a sharp increase in executions, 45 women were executed. This is nearly twice the number (23) executed during the previous eleven years (2004-2014). Three of these executions were carried out without being officially announced, raising the possibility of further unreported cases. 

ALQST, meanwhile, in Women Facing the Death Penalty in Saudi Arabia: Invisibility and Structural Injustice, focuses on women executed or on death row over the past three years, and explores the multiple injustices – relating to gender, citizenship and economic status – that have resulted in their facing capital punishment in Saudi Arabia. Most of them have been convicted of murder, with no consideration given to mitigating circumstances such as a background of vulnerability and abuse at the hands of relatives or employers. Others have faced drug-related charges, particularly since 2024 when executions for such offences began to surge. 

Both reports highlight the severe difficulty of obtaining information about women on death row due to fear, stigma, embassy inaction, and the fundamental lack of transparency in the country. And both show that non-Saudis make up the majority of women documented as executed or currently on death row, most of them migrant domestic workers from various African, South Asian and Southeast Asian countries. 

In murder cases, a significant barrier for foreign nationals is the difficulty of securing diya (a discretionary financial settlement that may be considered in certain cases involving private claims), even when victims’ families express willingness to grant a pardon. This challenge is often exacerbated by the poverty, low social standing and limited social support networks experienced by female domestic workers employed in private households. Under the kingdom’s sponsorship-based labour migration system, their legal residence status is tied to individual employers who often confiscate their phones and passports. This severely limits their mobility, access to legal or consular assistance, and ability to report abuse without fear of reprisals.

Such cases are often linked to abuses that the women have experienced, including sexual and domestic violence. Yet claims of gender-based violence, self-defence and exploitative labour conditions are routinely disregarded by the judiciary. The fact that Saudi Arabia’s legal system lacks a formal penal code, and allows judges (exclusively male) to exercise wide discretion in sentencing, creates space for subjective and gendered interpretations of the law that reflect deeply patriarchal structures.

In drug-related cases women also face a range of violations of their rights, including denial of effective legal counsel, lack of interpreting services where procedures are conducted entirely in Arabic, and limited or non-existent consular support, leaving them unable to meaningfully challenge accusations or defend themselves in court. The absence of fair trial guarantees means that mitigating factors such as histories of abuse, coercion or trafficking are rarely meaningfully examined.

ALQST’s report includes detailed testimony from a foreign woman detained on drug-related charges who was, unusually, later released. She described being denied basic information about her legal situation and being forced to sign documents in Arabic without translation or legal counsel. Her release was only possible due to the extraordinary efforts of her family abroad, who obtained airport CCTV footage showing that drugs had been planted in her luggage.

The two reports situate their findings within the broader context of Saudi Arabia’s legal system, where judicial proceedings routinely fall short of international fair trial standards. They underscore Saudi Arabia’s obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), ratified in 2000. During its 2024 review, the CEDAW Committee expressed serious concern about the continued application of the death penalty against women and urged Saudi Arabia to halt executions of women on death row.

The reports also highlight the inconsistent and often inadequate role of labour-sending states. Consular protection for nationals facing capital charges in Saudi Arabia is frequently delayed, limited or entirely absent. Many of these governments lack sufficient resources or institutional mechanisms to monitor detainees, ensure early access to defendants or secure effective legal representation. There is often also a lack of political will. Yet some countries, such as the Philippines, Nepal and Indonesia, have temporarily suspended labour deployment to Saudi Arabia in recent years because of executions and the lack of safeguards, showing that diplomatic tools can be used where there is political will.  

In light of these findings, ALQST and ESOHR call in their reports for urgent action. Their calls include:

For the Saudi authorities: 

• Adopt an immediate moratorium on executions, particularly for non-violent offences, along with an independent review of capital cases involving migrant women, survivors of abuse, and victims of trafficking, with a view to commutation and release.
• Ensure that all detainees facing capital charges are informed promptly of the reasons for their arrest and granted immediate access to legal counsel and interpreters if needed. Families and consular authorities must be notified without delay.

For labour-sending states:

• Embassies should establish clear protocols for responding to arrests and trials involving their nationals, especially women; strengthen consular protection mechanisms; and ensure that families are informed in a timely manner. 
• Diplomatic engagement with Saudi Arabia should prioritise the protection of nationals over political or economic considerations. Failures of notification or access should be formally documented and raised through bilateral and multilateral channels.

For international institutions and partner states: 

• United Nations mechanisms should intensify scrutiny of Saudi Arabia’s use of the death penalty, with particular attention to gendered and migration-related impacts, and treat failures of consular notification and fair trial guarantees as violations of international law. 
• States engaged in diplomatic, economic or security cooperation with Saudi Arabia should ensure that such engagement is conditioned on measurable improvements in transparency, due process and protection for vulnerable defendants.