Sous-commission "Droits de l'homme"

On 17 October, the DROI Subcommittee will exchange views with the new Director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), Sirpa Rautio, who became Director in March this year. She will present FRA's latest and upcoming work. Created in 2007 to collect data on the situation of fundamental rights within the EU, FRA also includes more and more candidate countries to EU membership in its surveys. Its work is made available to Parliament to ground its positions on well-established evidence.

On 26 September, the Committees on Foreign Affairs and on Development, together with the Subcommittee on Human Rights, presented the candidates for this year's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, one of the most important events of the European Parliament. On 17 October, the AFET and DEVE committees will meet again to narrow down the list of nominees to a three-candidate shortlist, via a secret vote.

On Tuesday 17 September, the Subcommittee on Human Rights held an extraordinary meeting with a group of Afghan women human rights defenders. Guests shared testimonies about the life of women and girls in Afghanistan under the Talibans. In this first meeting since the elections, DROI has chosen to shed light on the ever-worsening situation of women. On top of existing denials of human rights, a new law adopted in August forbids women to speak in the public sphere.