When the Law Fails Women: From Witch Hunts to Modern Injustice

By Zoe Kahn · WIIN Fellow, Non-Profit Governance, Human Rights & Immigration Advocacy · October 25, 2026

Throughout history, legal systems have played a contradictory role in the protection and persecution of women. For example, during the European witch hunts, which date back to the 15th century, accusations of witchcraft became instruments through which women could be prosecuted and punished for perceived violations of religious and social norms.¹ Although most witchcraft laws have been deemed outdated or have been dismantled by changing legality, a similar sentiment remains in our modern day laws. While contemporary legal systems have evolved to formally recognize women’s rights, the existence of legal protections does not necessarily guarantee their enforcement. From institutional failures to try and address femicide to discriminatory policies restricting bodily autonomy, women continue to encounter structural barriers within the very systems intended to protect them.

This historical contrast raises a fundamental question: how can the law function as an instrument of justice when the institutions responsible for its enforcement continue to reproduce gender-based inequalities? Reflecting on the seventieth session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW70), which emphasized strengthening women’s access to justice through inclusive legal systems, the history of witchcraft persecution offers an important lens through which we can examine how gendered power structures persist within legal institutions, exposing the gap between formal legal recognition and meaningful protection.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, the persecution of women accused of witchcraft became intertwined with broader political and economic efforts to regulate women’s bodies, labor, and autonomy. As author and feminist activist Silvia Federici argues, the rise of capitalism transformed European social relations, reinforcing patriarchal hierarchies and violently reordering social relations.² Women whose independence or livelihoods challenged established norms, became the main targets of this violent reordering, mainly via witch hunts. Witchcraft accusations became a means of stigmatizing such women, reflecting what Steven Katz, philosopher and scholar, describes as the association between female power and evil.³ He states “…the witch craze was inseparable from the stigmatization of women… Historically, the most salient manifestation of the unreserved belief in female power and female evil is evidenced in the tight, recurrent, by-now nearly instinctive association of women and witchcraft.”⁴ Witchcraft thus became a designation imposed upon women perceived as threats to patriarchal authority. Rather than merely expressions of religious superstition, witch hunts can be understood as mechanisms of social and political control, through which institutions legitimized the persecution of women who challenged established structures of power. In this context, the law did not simply fail to protect women from discrimination, it actively legitimized their punishment, demonstrating how systems intended to administer justice could instead reinforce the very hierarchies that enabled gender-based violence.

Similar patterns of gendered authority emerged in colonial Latin America, where accusations of witchcraft were also prevalent. In a 1774 Mexican Inquisition case documented by Ruth Behar, a man accused his wife of witchcraft for allegedly using supernatural powers to prevent him from physically abusing her, illustrating how women’s attempts to resist male domination could themselves become grounds for suspicion and accusation.⁵ The irony of this case was that the accusation turned her resistance to abuse into a possible offence against her husband’s authority. Rather than functioning as neutral instruments of justice, legal institutions during the Inquisition became sites where existing inequalities were reproduced and legitimized. This case is particularly interesting to contemporary discussions about women’s access to justice and the promotion of equitable legal systems, as it raises the questions: which lives does the legal system deem fit for protection?

As we shift to consider contemporary legal systems, we must acknowledge that while the law has shifted to better recognize women’s rights, it is still riddled with discriminatory language and practice which prevent these hypothetical protections from being meaningful. Past legal institutions could actively participate in the unlawful persecution of women, as expressed in witch hunts, while today, international human rights frameworks are meant to help formally recognize the rights of women and girls. Yet, despite these efforts, gender stereotypes, inadequate investigations, and institutional bias have prevented women from accessing justice.

One strong illustration of this contradiction lies in acts of femicide throughout Latin America. The laws that Latin American countries have put forward to criminalize femicide are vague in their wording and poorly enforced, resulting in an insufficient protection of women. In 1994, the Belem Do Para was signed by several countries across Latin America, making violence against women a legal human rights violation.⁶ This was essential in the process of criminalizing femicide, however, while creating laws and reform is a start, Latin American countries are still fighting against a prominent machismo culture that has influenced laws that lack clarity on criminalizations and legal proceedings, making it more difficult to prosecute acts of femicide.⁷

In Mexico, for example, the criminalization of femicide represents an important legal advancement, yet inadequate investigations, institutional discrimination, and impunity continue to obstruct accountability for gender-based killings. In 2022, Mexico’s statistics on femicide reflected the killings of around 4,000 women, however only 950 investigations were opened under the legal classification of femicide.⁸ Even after the state courts received roughly 1,100 requests from prosecutors to initiate prosecutions for individual acts of femicide, there were only 540 guilty verdicts.⁹ Mexico, although being considered an early pioneer of establishing femicide laws, is slow to reduce killings and considered weak in their ability to effectively combat femicide in practice.¹⁰ One of the main shortcomings of these laws has to do with the fact that in practice, the law is applied inconsistently.¹¹ Additionally, federal and state codes leave room for authorities to misclassify femicide cases or deliberately avoid applying the heavier charge, undermining the goal of the law.¹²

Another example of the limitations of legal protections is the Closing the Law Enforcement Consent Loophole Act of 2022, which was enacted in 2022 as a part of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), and established a federal offense prohibiting federal law enforcement officers from engaging in sexual acts with individuals under their custody or supervision, regardless of alleged consent.¹³ The legislation addresses an inherent imbalance of power between law enforcement officials and those in their custody, where threats, intimidation, or fear of retaliation can undermine an individual’s ability to refuse sexual advances or report abuse. These vulnerabilities can be particularly significant for women facing language barriers or immigration-related insecurity. While the act was created with the intention of stopping sexual assault, and is seen as an important step towards accountability, the impact of the law has not been greatly effective. Its scope remains limited to federal law enforcement officers, leaving states to enact their own protective laws at local levels, creating a major jurisdictional limitation.¹⁴ Without clear and comprehensive legal protections for detainees, individuals remain vulnerable to abuses of power by law enforcement officials, while gaps in the law allow for inconsistent enforcement and limited accountability. Moreover, government reporting has documented no prosecutions under the new provision through fiscal year 2025, although it should be highlighted that other statutes may be used to pursue each misconduct, and that underreporting is still very common.¹⁵ This example further demonstrates how legal recognition of abuse does not necessarily guarantee consistent protection or meaningful access to justice, particularly when those entrusted with enforcing the law are themselves responsible for violating it.

During the witch hunts, legal institutions could actively participate in the persecution of women whose knowledge, independence, or behavior challenged established authority. Although the law has since evolved to formally recognize women’s rights, the examples of femicide and custodial sexual abuse demonstrate that legal protection does not always translate into justice. This historical contrast speaks directly to the priorities of CSW70, which emphasized the removal of discriminatory practices and structural barriers within legal systems. Strengthening women’s access to justice requires more than passing protective legislation; it means ensuring that existing laws are enforced, that those responsible for abuse are held accountable, and that discriminatory assumptions do not determine whose rights are protected. The history of witchcraft persecution reminds us that the law can be used both to uphold and to undermine justice, and that ultimately, progress should be measured not simply by the rights women are promised, but by the protection they actually receive.

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Notes

1. Susan Migden Socolow, “Women and Social Deviance: Crime, Witchcraft, and Rebellion,” in The Women of Colonial Latin America, New Approaches to the Americas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 164–165.
2. Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (New York: Autonomedia, 2004).
3. Steven T. Katz, The Holocaust in Historical Context. Vol. 1: The Holocaust and Mass Death before the Modern Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 503.
4. Ibid.
5. Ruth Behar, “Sexual Witchcraft, Colonialism, and Women’s Powers: Views from the Mexican Inquisition,” in Sexuality and Marriage in Colonial Latin America, ed. Asunción Lavrin (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), 178–201.
6. Organization of American States, Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment and Eradication of Violence Against Women (Convention of Belém do Pará), adopted June 9, 1994, https://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/a-61.html.
7. Danielle Castano, “Femicide in Latin America,” Human Rights Research Center, May 9, 2024, https://www.humanrightsresearch.org/post/femicide-in-latin-america; Streva, “Notes on Femicide/Feminicidio,” 112, 119.
8. Human Rights Watch, Double Injustice: How Mexico’s Criminal Justice System Fails Victims and the Accused in Homicide Investigations (New York: Human Rights Watch, February 19, 2025), https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/02/19/double-injustice/how-mexicos-criminal-justice-system-fails-victims-and-accused.
9. Ibid.
10. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero, “Femicide Laws, Unilateral Divorce, and Abortion Decriminalization Fail to Stop Women from Being Killed in Mexico” (London: Queen Mary University of London, July 2025), 1–8; Alejandra Araiza Díaz, Flor Carina Vargas Martínez, and Uriel Medécigo Daniel, “La tipificación del feminicidio en México: Un diálogo entre argumentos sociológicos y jurídicos,” Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género 6 (2020), https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?pid=S2395-91852020000100204&script=sci_arttext.
11. “Código Penal Federal [Mexico], Libro Segundo, Título Decimonoveno, Capítulo V — Feminicidio,” México Justia, https://mexico.justia.com/federales/codigos/codigo-penal-federal/libro-segundo/titulo-decimonoveno/capitulo-v; Araiza Díaz et al., “La tipificación del feminicidio en México.”
12. Michelle Carrigan and Myrna Dawson, “Problem Representations of Femicide/Feminicide Legislation in Latin America,” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 9, no. 2 (2020), 6–11, https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v9i2.1354; Araiza Díaz et al., “La tipificación del feminicidio en México.”
13. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Policy, Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization Act of 2022 (VAWA 2022): Section 1204(a) Report—Closing the Law Enforcement Consent Loophole Act of 2022, for Fiscal Year 2024 (March 2025), https://www.justice.gov/ovw/media/1396341/dl?inline.
14. U.S. Congress, House, Closing the Law Enforcement Consent Loophole Act of 2021, H.R. 2172, 117th Cong., 1st sess., introduced March 23, 2021, https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2172/all-info.
15. U.S. Government Accountability Office, Federal Law Enforcement: Status Update with Regard to Criminal Sexual Acts while Serving in Official Capacity (Fiscal Year 2025), GAO-26-108616 (December 17, 2025), https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-108616.