Part of Women and Equality – in the House of Commons at 10:30 am on 22 March 2007.
Sadiq Khan
Labour, Tooting
10:30,
22 March 2007
My hon. Friend will be aware that earlier this week there was an excellent debate on the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery. She attended the entire debate, and will have heard the comparisons that were drawn between modern-day slavery—human trafficking—and slavery 200 years ago. In the light of that, will she let us know what progress has been made in ratifying the Council of Europe treaty to which she referred earlier?
An international organisation of member states (45 at the time of writing) in the European region; not to be confused with the Council of the European Union, nor the European Council.
Founded on 5 May, 1949 by the Treaty of London, and currently seated in Strasbourg, membership is open to all European states which accept the princple of the rule of law and guarantee fundamental human rights and freedoms to their citizens. In 1950, this body created the European Convention on Human Rights, which laid out the foundation principles and basis on which the European Court of Human Rights stands.
Today, its primary activities include charters on a range of human rights, legal affairs, social cohesion policies, and focused working groups and charters on violence, democracy, and a range of other areas.
