The Project aims at increasing the capacity of women’s NGOs in partner countries in Central Asia (Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan) to use CEDAW mechanisms to counteract discrimination against women and advance women’s rights as well as improving women’s access to justice at national and international level. The current Project builds on the 2008-2009 activities of KARAT in CEE and Central Asia linked to the promotion of Optional Protocol to CEDAW. During the realization of the previous project KARAT learnt that barriers limiting women’s access to justice at national level prevent women from using OP CEDAW, exhaustion of national remedies being one of the admissibility criteria of the communication submitted under this mechanism. Thus the current Project aims, among others, at enhancing women’s access to justice for the advancement of CEDAW implementation at national level.

The Project’s strategy aims at:

• Keeping the States accountable for implementing Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);
• Improving the knowledge on women’s access to justice as a barrier to use the OP CEDAW communication procedure
• Contributing to women’s NGOs debate at international level in the context of CEDAW, Beijing +15 and UN human rights documents