Barrister Patwary has conducted couple of mobile courts for tobacco control and is also engaging farmers to encourage them for crop substitution. "We will give them subsidy if they abandon tobacco cultivation. Corn is very popular in Bangladesh so we are encouraging them to cultivate corn rather than tobacco" he said.
Local leaders are more in direct contact with the people. Whereas Members of Parliaments spend significant part of their time in the parliament and parliamentary processes and proceedings. For good governance it is vital that MPs work closely in tandem with local leaders who are more rooted in the community they represent. "That is why we are working closely with Union Parishad chairman, Union Parishad members, local Sabha members, and other local leaders, as they play a key role in convincing people who elect them to lead healthier life, stop tobacco use, and reduce risk of NCDs. Without their collaboration no policy can be achieved. My ultimate aim is to declare some of the areas of my constituency as completely tobacco-free" said Barrister Patwary.
MPs can also support local leaders in amplifying their demands. "For example if local sabha member wants to promote NCDs prevention we can help promote that issue in the parliament or we can write to the ministry to help support the local leaders like Mayor who want to work on NCDs prevention, or make a park for people to do physical activity, or run awareness campaigns" said Patwary. He shared another way to help strengthen voices of local leaders: "Parliamentary Standing Committee is a very powerful committee on health or other issues. Parliamentary committee has parliamentarians as members and it can make recommendations. Good thing is that when a parliamentary committee makes a recommendation it is reviewed every three months, and it is almost binding for the ministry to follow these recommendations."
WHO has recognized tobacco industry interference as major obstacle in implementing global tobacco treaty (formally called the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control) as well as, tobacco use as a threat to sustainable development. That is why the global tobacco treaty has WHO FCTC Article 5.3 to empower governments of over 180 countries to stop tobacco industry interference in health policy.
Barrister Patwary shared that like in Japan, Bangladesh too, significant number of shares in tobacco company are owned by the government itself. This is the biggest problem why we lag behind in implementing WHO FCTC Article 5.3, says Patwary. "This creates a serious question of bias, lobby, interference... and also government cannot decide against the interest of tobacco company when itself it is a part of tobacco company."
"We impose 1% surcharge on all tobacco products and we are advocating that this surcharge money should be used for prevention of NCDs" informed Barrister Patwary.
Referring to progress made on WHO FCTC Article 19 which will empower governments of over 180 countries to hold tobacco industry liable, financially and legally, he commented that we need a far advanced legal framework if we are to hold tobacco companies liable for the damage they have caused. He said "we need some sort of funding for litigation in our country and alliance of lawyers so that lawyers get encouraged to do probono litigation against tobacco companies" to hold them to account for violations and abuses.
Catastrophic health expense derails development
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
