With no clear legal criteria on how to determine suspects, police officers frequently threatened to take women working the streets and night bars to Ramany on suspicion of this crime. The hospital’s “high security” status meant that is was guarded by security forces, creating an intimidating and frightening atmosphere for the women, and making it easier for police to keep them there by force, although women were forced to sign a document attesting that they had come of their own will.

The threat of the high security hospital was more often used to extort large sums of money than to bring cases based upon substantive evidence. If the prostitutes refused to pay the police directly, they were brought to the hospital for examination; at this point, the amount of the bribe would skyrocket as doctors also became involved in the extortion. In such a system, women were rightly concerned that their medical records would be falsified (affecting their ability to continue working) or that they would be forced to pay more bribes for ‘medical treatment’. The prostitutes, largely unaware of specifics of this legislation and their legal rights, felt helpless in the face of corruption.

Transparency Azerbaijan’s Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre (ALAC) provides a forum to provide legal advice and follow up complaints of corrupt activities.

On 27 July 2005, a woman came to ALAC in Baku and complained of the corrupt behaviour of police officers who had detained her and a friend in the street, fined them for prostitution (which, while not a criminal offence, can be charged under the Administrative Code, carrying a fine of $10 to $50), and brought them to the Ramany hospital for examination. The women claimed they were forced to pay a bribe to the chief doctor in exchange for their release from the hospital.

The relevant legislation states that no one can force a medical examination on suspects unless they are implicated in the complaint of someone reporting a disease, or if something is found by a doctor during a regular medical examination. In this case, the police charged the women with disseminating venereal diseases and detained them at the hospital for enforced treatment, something well beyond their authority.

Upon hearing the complaint, ALAC sent letters to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of National Security and the Prosecutor General. Although the official response of the Ministry of Internal Affairs was that the police acted within the limits of the law, ALAC’s intervention sparked a number of changes. At the request of the Prosecutor General, the Minister of Health removed Ramany's high security status, reducing the opportunity for extortion.

In addition to demonstrating to those who feel powerless that it is possible to fight back, this will eventually contribute towards improved treatment of venereal diseases (and potentially HIV/AIDS) as they come to be seen as medical and social problems rather than merely breeding grounds for corruption.