CEDAW Shadow Report  2011  Introduction  The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979 by the UN (United Nations) General Assembly, is an international bill of rights for women. The Convention is an international legal tool which comes into force in the countries that have signed or ratified it, with the exceptions being the reservations of the State party. The governments are required to report progress periodically to the Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women. The CEDAW Committee is a powerful instrument for articulating, advocating, and monitoring women’s human rights. NGOs( Non Governmental organizations) have very important role in making the Convention an instrument of women’s empowerment, through advocacy and monitoring their government’s implementation of the treaty. Because the Convention’s enforcement mechanism is based on the reporting system, it is imperative that the NGOs understand and use the reporting mechanism to maintain government accountability both inside the country and at the United Nations. The governments are obliged to act upon the general recommendations or the concluding comments of the CEDAW Committee and report on its progress. Governments’ assessments of their efforts to comply with the Convention are frequently incomplete and tend to minimize problems and maximize accomplishments. The CEDAW Committee welcomes the governments to involve the NGOs in preparing the country reports. However, it invites direct NGO input, in the form of independent or "shadow" reports and informal presentations, to bring women’s real concerns to national and international attention, because the government can omit the NGO versions/inputs in its final report. Shadow reports prepared by NGOs provide insightful information and are being used as complimentary reports to the Government as well as recommendations to the Government for its strategic intervention. These periodic shadow reports have vastly improved the effectiveness of the monitoring process by providing the Committee with critical information that is absent from the official government reports. The parallel reports serve as an effective advocacy tool in the domestic context by providing means of drawing public attention to the claims a state party makes in its report, and to help educate the media and the public about the State’s international human rights obligations. Organizational Background  The Beyond Beijing Committee (BBC), a pioneer and leading organization working for women's human rights and gender justice in Nepal, was founded since the preparations to the Fourth Women's World Conference, 1995. 4  Beyond Beijing Committee, Kathmandu, Nepal