27/10/2008 President
, 27.10.2008 – The President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Lluís Maria de Puig, has ended a six-day official visit to (21 to 26 October 2008) by expressing the hope that the country can further contribute to advocating Council of Europe values in the region. has held observer status with the Assembly since 1999.
At meetings with Mexico’s Foreign Minister, the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies and other leading parliamentarians and officials, the President expressed his appreciation for Mexico’s leadership among Latin American countries in abolishing the death penalty, explained the Assembly’s ongoing work on ‘feminicides’ and urged Mexico to ratify the Council of Europe Convention against Human Trafficking.
Later, at a series of lectures in and in , the President highlighted the European experience of fighting human trafficking – especially involving women and children – using the Convention. The disappearance and murder of women and girls in Chihuahua was a matter of particular concern, Mr de Puig pointed out, and a 2005 Assembly report on the subject had led to a more general report on ‘feminicides’ due in January. The lectures formed part of an ongoing seminar on “Human rights from a gender perspective”, organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
During the visit, Mr de Puig also discussed the role of as an observer state in the Council of Europe and prospects for future co-operation in the light of the forthcoming 10th anniversary of ’s observer status and the 60th anniversary of the Council of Europe in 2009.
The President said that despite the political upheaval surrounding the adoption of energy reform, which took place during his visit, he had been able to meet the Minister of Foreign Affairs Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies César Duarte Jáquez and members of the Chamber’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Under-secretary of State for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo and his senior colleagues, as well as the Special Federal Prosecutor for Crimes of Violence against Women and Human Trafficking, Maria Guadalupe Morfín Otero.