Thank you Mr Chairman.
On behalf of the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, I am very pleased to provide these reflections on how the FCTC has the capacity to improve Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health and to decrease gender inequities.
Approximately 250 million women and almost 1 billion men are daily smokers. Although the rates for male smoking have peaked and are now in slow decline, the rates for girls and women are still rising rapidly.
Researchers predict female smokers will rise from current 12% to 20% by 2025.
And this does not take into account other forms of tobacco such as chewing tobacco, water pipes, bidis, or snus, all of which are increasingly used by women.
In several high-income countries, disadvantaged women are the highest subgroup of female smokers and the highest smoking uptake rates are seen in disadvantaged girls.
Women in LMICs are rapidly becoming the biggest at-risk group, and the tobacco industry describes women and girls as an “untapped market resource”.
Furthermore, more women than men are exposed to second-hand smoke and in many households, women and children will be more vulnerable to secondhand smoke.
Very aware of this problem the Secretariat of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco control in close collaboration with the WHO department on Gender, Equity and Human Rights and other partners, prepared a report that was presented to the Seventh Conference of the Parties entitled “Addressing gender-specific risks when developing tobacco control strategies”.
For the first time the Conference of the Parties discussed gender and human rights issues related to tobacco consumption and exposure to second hand smoke. Two COP decisions were the result of these discussions. In these the COP requested:
On the one hand for the Convention Secretariat to invite WHO to prepare and submit a paper to COP8 looking at the evidence on tobacco use and its consequences among girls and women, as well as boys and men and also to look into policy options to be considered by the Parties to ensure gender specific aspects are addressed.
On the other hand for Parties to cooperate internationally to address the issue of increased tobacco consumption that is exacerbated by transnational tobacco companies’ strategies to enter emerging-market economies, particularly in lower-income countries, by linking the human rights framework and development to tackling the global tobacco epidemic;
The Secretariat of the WHO FCTC will continue our efforts, together with the WHO department on Gender, Equity and Human Rights and other WHO departments, International NGOs and UN agencies, to protect our girls, boys women and men from the devastating consequences of the tobacco industry strategies to increase the number of tobacco consumers world-wide. We know they are concentrating their efforts in the most vulnerable as potential future markets.