In mid-January 1991, the first official meeting of the founding members took place at the Mainz Police Headquarters. In attendance were the

• City Women’s Office,
• the Emergency Hotline for Raped Women and Girls, Inc.: now the Mainz Women’s Emergency Hotline—Specialized Center on Sexual Violence,
• the FemMa Girls’ Shelter e. V.: now Das MädchenHaus Mainz gGmbH
• Criminal Investigation Division 12: today K2, and
• the special unit at the Mainz Public Prosecutor’s Office responsible for violence against women and children: today the Division for Violence Against Children and Women (including domestic violence).

In the fight against violence against women and children, this form of networking between autonomous women’s projects and government agencies was a true innovation for Rhineland-Palatinate.

Even though the names of nearly all the founding members have changed, the goals and mission of the Working Group on Violence Against Women and Children have remained the same over the past three decades.

“ […] The goal is to facilitate the exchange of information and experiences, to develop strategies for prevention and combating violence, and to discuss the political goals of the women’s movement.”
From the Working Group on Violence’s 1995 mission statement

In its very first year of existence, the five founding institutions agreed on seven central tasks for the Working Group on Violence, which remain valid today with almost no changes:

• Networking
• Information exchange
• Public relations
• Prevention
• Victim protection
• Unbureaucratic assistance for victims
• Training

In 1991 and the years that followed, the primary focus was on expanding support services for women affected by violence in a way that met their needs. Today, the working group’s representatives are particularly focused on identifying and addressing weaknesses in the support services developed in recent years—and on further optimizing existing partnerships, including in the area of prevention.

Then as now, AK Gewalt does not see itself as a closed society; "newcomers" from work with female victims of violence were welcome from the outset and remain so today.

The Women's Office took over the leadership of the working group back in the 1990s. This has remained the case to this day, although since 2014 a team of moderators has been taking turns to chair the working group's meetings. In 2014, the working group on violence gave itself a new profile in order to make its joint work more binding, results-oriented, and sustainable.

The AK Gewalt will continue to be an important instrument in combating violence against women in Mainz for many years to come. Its work is indispensable as long as the power imbalance and economic inequality between men and women persist.