INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR THE ERADICATION OF POVERTY

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[01:46 pm] 17 October, 2006

The Council of Europe’s strategy for combating poverty is aimed at
strengthening social cohesion in Europe, and preventing and combating
social exclusion.

The Council of Europe has a number of legal instruments chief among
them the European Convention on Human Rights which establishes
rights and fundamental freedoms, and the European Social Charter
which establishes social rights, including the right to protection
against poverty and the right to housing.

Each year, the Council of Europe takes part in the celebration of
the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and organises a
ceremony in front of a replica of the Commemorative Stone, symbolising
the refusal of extreme poverty, which was laid in 1993 on the Palais
de l’Europe forecourt. The day officially recognised by the United
Nations in 1992. The day was first celebrated in 1987 by thousands
of participants at the Human Rights Plaza in Paris, France. On 17
October 1987, 100,000 defenders of human rights gathered together on
the Trocadero Plaza in Paris to honour victims of hunger, violence,
and ignorance, to express their refusal of extreme poverty.
From: Baghdasarian