Ms Iverna McGowan:

We have included a good deal of work on the asylum directives also, which was raised, in terms of people arriving at borders and then the follow-up on FGM in terms of women in detention in some cases having just entered European borders. It is about it happening in Europe but also about European neighbourhood policy in that respect going beyond the borders. It is also about strengthening the calls at the United Nations for concrete policy and legislation. A question was asked about what we can do in concrete terms to fight against FGM. Amnesty International has an e-learning tool for health care providers which goes into detail on the practical steps because all too often legislation is adopted but not implemented on the ground or dealt with.

With regard to accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, our office is called the European Institutions Office because we deal with both the European Union and the Council of Europe. Members will find in the mid-term review of our evaluation that we welcomed that finally, the draft agreement for EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights has been agreed. The challenge now is the so-called internal rules. One of the actions we called for in the mid-term review is a more transparent dialogue on what these internal reviews will entail. Will they serve to limit what ultimately will be the consequences of EU accession or will they be in line with the purpose and cause of that convention, namely, to protect and promote human rights in the European Union? That is a pertinent question.

In terms of corporate accountability, the incident in Bangladesh brought that to the forefront again. We have found working on corporate accountability at the EU level that progress has been slow. We are involved in a number of negotiations on more technical issues. However, we believe there is a need for a broader discussion on what we can do in terms of implementing the UN guiding principles on business corporate accountability at EU level. We can provide the committee with a more detailed response on that at a later date.

With regard to Islamophobia, last year Amnesty International released a report on discrimination against Muslims in Europe, to which I would invite any interested members to refer.