Recommendations on Policing in Multi-Ethnic Societies level senior police and policy makers need to be meeting with national-level minority leaders to discuss broad policy and strategy issues, or incidents of national concern, while at local level the focus will be on practical matters relating to community policing or incidents of concern locally. Police should ensure that minority languages can be used as the medium of communication in such meetings (see under Recommendation 13 below). In addition, when making practical arrangements, police should be sensitive to diversity in religious and cultural practices, for example by taking care not to schedule events on holy days or festivals. Police also need to ensure that they reach women and young people in national minorities in their communications, and not only the older male members of such communities. 13. Police will need to ensure they have the capability to communicate with minorities in minority languages, wherever possible by recruitment and training of multilingual staff, and also by use of qualified interpreters. The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Article 10) sets out the rights of national minorities to use their languages in public, and, so far as possible, in their relations with the administrative authorities. It also sets out their rights to use such languages in situations involving arrest or prosecution. Police therefore need to make provision for the use of such languages in their dealings with persons belonging to national minorities, whether as employees, suspects, witnesses, or simply as members of the public generally (e.g. in consultations, crime prevention activities, or public order situations.) Given that national minorities vary in the extent to which they actually use their own languages, and vary also in the extent to which they are fluent and literate in the official language(s) of the state, it may be appropriate to undertake a needs assessment to determine what provision is in practice required. Police should particularly bear in mind that certain groups within some national minorities (for example, older people or women) may be less likely to be fluent in the majority or official language, as they may have received less formal education or have limited involvement in public life. Recruitment of persons belonging to national minorities into the police will immediately provide the police organization with a major resource to meet this need. Police from minority backgrounds working in areas where their own minority communities reside will be able use their minority language in their work. On occasion they may also be able to act as interpreters for colleagues, although it is important that their non-minority colleagues working in such areas should receive appropriate 27