Inclusion and anti-discrimination programmes

The Council of Europe's Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Programmes Division carries out activities to ensure genuine equality and full access to rights and opportunities for all members of society.

The Division is composed of four Units, offering concrete and tested solutions to governmental and non-governmental partners in member States to strenghten inclusion and address discrimination and inequality that undermine the enjoyment of human rights and democracy by everyone:

Retour Promoting equality in Azerbaijan

Promoting equality in Azerbaijan

22-23 June 2022, Lankaran – A new workshop on combating discrimination and promoting equality enhanced the knowledge and practical competences of the Ombudsman office staff, representatives of the regional/local authorities and civil society organizations active in combating discrimination in the country. During this activity, thirty participants became acquainted with international and European standards, notably the Council of Europe work in this field. Focus of the presentations and follow up discussions was on understanding of the key concepts of human rights, the specifics of racism, hate crimes and discrimination, and the impact of prejudice and stigmatization on individuals. The training also aimed to improve skills of participants to support the victims of discrimination and apply the acquired knowledge through their further daily work and activities on combating discrimination and promoting equality. Presentations from some of the recently trained trainers, from the same project, linked standards and cases to the local context.

The specific topics that were covered with this training were rights to equality and non-discrimination, international and national human rights standards, gender related discrimination, identifying discrimination in education, discrimination of people with disabilities but also discussion on different grounds for discrimination including minority, religion, ethnic origin, with focus on instruments and mechanisms to prevent and combat inequality on all levels.

The activity  was organized in cooperation with the  Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan, within the framework of joint European Union and Council of Europe project “Strengthening access to justice through non-judicial redress mechanisms for victims of discrimination, hate crime and hate speech in Eastern Partnership countries”, and the programme “Partnership for Good Governance II 2019-2022”.

Lankaran, Azerbaijan 22-23/06/2022
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 The four Units' activities are directly based on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the recommendations and findings of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (AC/FCNM), and the Committee of Experts of the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages, as well as relevant Committee of Ministers Recommendations.

 

 The approach of the Division is to establish a direct link between standards, the monitoring processes, the intergovernmental work, such as the Steering Committee on Anti-Discrimination, Diversity and Inclusion (CDADI) and the implementation of co-operation activities. This allows to identify weaknesses in the implementation of standards where technical cooperation activities can be helpful.

 

 The Division works closely with the existing networks of equality bodies and national human rights structures (ombudsmen and national human rights institutions); other Council of Europe monitoring bodies (such as European Committee of Social Rights, the Group of experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO) and their secretariats; European networks of NGO’s and national civil society platforms; and international actors, such as the EU Commission and its Agencies (including the Fundamental Rights Agency), the UN agencies (such as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Development Programme) and the OSCE/ODIHR.