Muslim Women’s Research and Action Forum [MWRAF] was started in 1976 by a few Muslim women who gathered together at informal meetings to discuss critical issues facing Muslim women in Sri Lanka. Later on we evolved as a formal organization in 1986 and registered as an NGO in 1990.

In 1986, MWRAF was founded on the following premises:

• That Muslim women in Sri Lanka have specific socio-economic and legal problems.
• That Muslim women should actively participate in order to use their full potential in the development process.
• That professionals should actively involve themselves in the socio economic, cultural and political transformation to address specific issues of Muslim women in vulnerable situations.
• That women from Muslim communities need to interact with women from other ethnic communities on common issues at local, national and international levels.
• That a resource and documentation centre should be set up on issues specific to the Muslim society with the aim of disseminating knowledge.
• That Muslim people and their specific and diverse issues, located within the larger Sri Lankan political contex, should be addressed.