Part of Women and Equality – in the House of Commons at 10:30 am on 22 March 2007.
Meg Munn
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Communities and Local Government) (Women and Equality)
10:30,
22 March 2007
My hon. Friend says that we had an extremely interesting debate, and indeed we did; it was possibly the most interesting and informative debate that I have attended in this House. He rightly draws a parallel, and I am pleased to say that the Council of Europe convention will be signed tomorrow. We will set out the action that we will take to move towards ratification. The Government take signing such conventions seriously, and have not wanted to do so until we were in a position to make rapid progress towards ratifying it. The UK human trafficking action plan will be published at the same time, and that will give hon. Members a great deal more detail on the subject.
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.
