Council of Europe on Item V Thank you Madam Chairperson. I apologise for not being in the room. The council of Europe is originally an inter-governmental organisation based in Strasbourg which covers virtually the entire European continent with its 47 member states. The European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) is the main human rights body of the Council of Europe dealing with discrimination including against minority women. I will be referring to the discrimination in the field of employment recurrent theme in the ECRI monitoring country reports. ECRI has found persisting problems of prejudice against Muslim women. Islamophobia inevitably materialises in widespread discrimination including access to the labour market. A major point of difficulty for Muslim women is the impact of the choice to wear a headscarf on their chances on financing employment. Roma women in turn experience low levels of un-employment of employment of Roma men, and Roma in general suffer from lower levels of employment than the majority. On a positive note ECRI noticed a good practice in Cyprus that has proved popular with Roma women and could contribute to their access to employment namely their bi-communal community centre aimed at providing social services to both Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities in Limassol. It is run by an NGO and is founded by the municipality and the government in private donations. It is an informal place for social gathering but it is also offering advice and support and a variety of training programs for children, teenagers, women, families and the elderly. It is focused on particular on learning languages and gaining computer skills. The relaxed atmosphere and informal programs attracted many Roma women and children and played a significant role in increasing their confidence, skills, job opportunities and general integration. ECRI encouraged the authorities to provide increased funding to the bi-communal community centre in order for it to expand its premises and training programs to accommodate the larger number of applicants. This case-study may be useful for other countries to be applied as well. Thank you very much.