Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent progress his Department has made on engagement on human rights with countries in Latin America.

The United Kingdom is committed to protecting and promoting human rights in Latin America, particularly in our two human rights priority countries in the region, Colombia and Venezuela. Our programming across the region has included projects to strengthen democracy, protect civil society space by fostering freedom of expression and building capacity for local human rights defenders, and promote gender equality by tackling violence against women. We also have groundbreaking projects tackling regional modern slavery issues across eight countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

We remain committed to delivering a broad human rights agenda across Latin America. We regularly raise human rights issues in Latin America, both bilaterally and in multilateral fora, including at the UN Human Rights Council, and will continue to do so.