World No Tobacco Day 2010
Girls and boys for change: tobacco control now.
 

Theme:
Tobacco use by women is a serious, growing problem throughout the world. Women comprise about 20% of the world’s more than 1 billion smokers and this figure is rising. Use of other forms of tobacco, such as shisha and smokeless tobacco, is also increasing among women in many countries, particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean Region. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control expresses alarm at “the increase in smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption by women and young girls worldwide”.

Women are being increasingly targeted by tobacco companies, especially in low-income and middle-income countries. Tobacco use by women is becoming more socially acceptable in many countries as cultural norms change.

We have an opportunity and a responsibility to prevent the tobacco epidemic from becoming as bad among women as among men. Women have a right to be protected from the harms of tobacco use through measures called for in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, such as education, bans on tobacco marketing, protection against second-hand smoke and support for quitting. If we do nothing, millions of preventable deaths will occur.