Friday, October 24, 2008

On-line monitoring course to improve protection of child rights

I wrote recently how the UK Advertising Standards Authority cleared an advertisement for formula which breaches international marketing standards. See:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2008/10/asa-two-fingers-to-un.html

A key part of the campaign to have these minimum standards implemented in the UK is monitoring of the baby food companies.

Baby Milk Action is developing an on-line training course for people who are interested in learning more about the marketing requirements, how they are implemented in the UK nd how to monitor.

Wherever you are in the world, we would be delighted if you could complete a short questionnaire about you preferences for the course. You will find this at:
http://www.babyfeedinglawgroup.org.uk/course/courseqs.html

You can find our latest report, produced on behalf of the Baby Feeding Law Group, in our on-line Virtual Shop where it is available as a free download. Printed copies can be purchased, which helps to fund the monitoring project. See:
http://www.babymilkaction.org/shop/publications01.html#bflgreports

The cover shows some of the cases featured: Hipp's Goodnight milk promotion, Wyeth's SMA hoody gift to mothers, Heinz launch of its new 'Nurture' brand with promotions in supermarkets and on television and Danone's Cow & Gate advertisement, which the ASA cleared, showing its contempt for child rights and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.


It was evidence from this project that was submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child to show how baby food companies are marketing formula in the UK. The Committee concluded in its report: "The Committee, while appreciating the progress made in recent years in the promotion and support of breastfeeding in the State party, it is concerned that implementation of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes continues to be inadequate and that aggressive promotion of breastmilk substitutes remains common."

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