The WRMG had been established by the decision of the Human Rights Center of Azerbaijan (HRCA) Council in October 1996, and Mrs. Zaliha Tahirova had been appointed as its co-ordinator. In the begin, all the women members and volunteers join in one group for the monitoring of the situation of women's rights. The WRMG can also include the persons hired on its projects.

After the begin of work, there were defined more specific activities: publications on women's rights (editor Zaliha Tahirova and translator Gulnara Ismayilova), monitoring of conditions in the women's and children's prisons (project coordinator Elmira Alekberova), external relations and networking (responsible person Zaliha Tahirova). Since 1997, the special division on women's rights was established within the HRCA Library on Human Rights and Democratic Institutions.

Since January 1997, there were edited about 200 issues of WRMG newsletter "Women's Rights in Azerbaijan" in Azeri and Russian (some issues of 1999 were translated into English). The WRMG also publishes the special women bulletin on pristitution and trafficking in women as well as the special bulletin on sexual exploitation and violence against children.

The newsletters are distributed through the WRMG electronic mailing lists. The WRMG general electronic mailing list "WomeNet" includes 39 local subscribers, among them 7 women's groups, 6 human rights NGOs of general profile, 2 foundations, 3 humanitarian NGOs, 7 scientifical and educational organizations, etc. Usually, they are the "consumers" of information and passive in feedback.

Women's Prison was the first one which the HRCA activists had been allowed to visit in December 1996. Since the time, the imprisoned women were visited tens times. In 1997, the HRCA report contents the special chapter on the women's prison. In 2000, there was issued the more comprehensive report on the places of detention of women including a reference on legislation, penitentiary system and detention centers of "non-prison" type.

CEDAW. In January 1998, the "Shadow Report" was represented in CEDAW by Zaliha Tahirova together Elmira Alekperova. They also had a breefing in UN on the women's rights situation in Azerbaijan and general situation on human rights. The action was sponsored by the International League for Human Rights.

The "Shadow Report" was used successfully by numerous activists and officials in Azerbaijan. Even the govermental rapporteur in CEDAW session had spreaded some "addition report" copied from the shadow report. Our shadow report was quoted in many research works and in publications by women activists, scientists and journalists (statistics and main figures). However, the main result was that the women's problems attracted the attention of the government. On March 2000, the President signed his decision on the equal representation of women and men in the governmental structures.

Networking. The WRMG actively participates in the Caucasian women's networks. For example, the WRMG coordinator Zaliha Tahirova is one of the founders of so-called Caucasian NGO Forum (CF) where is active in the women's initiatives. She has repeatedly visited the conterparts of Armenia being in armed conflict with Azerbaijan four times in 2000. In particular, she participated in Armenia on special women meeting of South Caucasus NGOs and the representative from OSCE office in Armenia in 28-30 July 2000. As the result, there was established the Network on monitoring of trafficking of women and violence against women in South Caucasus and adopted the respective Declaration with participation of WRMG (HRCA).

 Biography of WRMG Coordinator Mrs. Zaliha Tahirova - in Russian and English

The contacts:
P.O. Box 31, Baku 370000, Azerbaijan
Phone/fax +994-12-977026
E-mail: wrmg@lycos.de, zaliha@mail.ru
http://members.tripod.de/wrmg