The Annual Report 2010 covers events and developments in the area of fundamental rights in the European Union during 2009. The report encompasses the full range of fundamental rights issues now covered by scope of the FRA mandate since it was expanded in March 2007. This year’s FRA Annual Report is divided into nine chapters: Chapter 1 covers information on equality bodies and complaints mechanisms under the Racial Equality Directive, followed by an outline of developments in the area of racist violence and crime in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 focuses information on racism and discrimination in various areas of social life – employment, housing, education and healthcare – and then includes a more general section dealing with issues relating to migrants and minorities in other areas of social life. Chapter 4 looks at developments relevant to equality and anti-discrimination that have not already been covered in the preceding sections, including discrimination based on sex, disability, age and sexual orientation. The following chapters cover developments in 2009 which fall under the headings of the FRA’s Multiannual Framework (MAF) – the document that sets out the thematic areas of the Agency’s activities in line with the priorities of the European Union in the field of human rights over the coming years. Chapter 5 highlights developments in the field of the rights of the child and protection of children. Chapter 6 then examines issues related to the integration of immigrants, and visa and border control, followed by an analysis of developments in the field of access to justice and victim compensation in Chapter 7. Participation of citizens of the EU in the Union’s democratic functioning is explored in Chapter 8, while an overview is provided on the subject of the information society, respect for private life and the protection of personal data in Chapter 9. Finally, a new feature of this year’s Annual Report is the inclusion of an Annex indicating the current state of play regarding the acceptance by Member States of international human rights instruments, namely conventions of the United Nations and agreements of the Council of Europe. It is anticipated that this Annex will be included and updated in each subsequent FRA Annual Report. Throughout this report there are references to examples of ‘good practice’. The identification of examples of ‘good practice’ acknowledges the value of a practice and contributes to supporting a culture of continuous progress. However the identification as ‘good practice’ does not imply that the respective practice has been directly scrutinised in depth by the Agency.