The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Child centered development organization Plan wants to highlight the link between tobacco and child poverty as well as develop methods to mitigate the dangerous consequences of tobacco for children and youth in the South.

Plan is holding a campaign in spring 2007 to highlight the child and youth perspective in relation to how the production, handling and use of tobacco violate children's rights.

Plan will focus on these issues:

The increased use of tobacco among children and young people and its effect on them;

The dangerous child labor on the tobacco plantations;

The health risks children are exposed to from passive smoking, growing, and use of tobacco;

The economic consequences for children when purchasing tobacco is prioritized over food, schooling, and healthcare;

The tobacco companies aggressive marketing methods towards children and youth.

The purpose is to raise awareness and advocate for the issue among the general public, children, young people and civil society actors. A long term goal is to ensure that development actors, both NGOs and government agencies, include anti-tobacco projects in their programming, and that anti-tobacco actors integrate a child rights perspective in their anti-tobacco programming.

Plan International is one of the leading international child centered development organizations, with no religious or political affiliations. Plan International operates in 46 developing countries, working with more than 90,000 communities. Plan International's main area of work is child centered community development within a rights-based approach guided by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.