Haider Rizvi, OneWorld USTue Apr 24, Joining hands with rights advocacy organizations this week, some of the world's leading female politicians and activists said they fully support civil society's call for a worldwide ban on gun supplies that fuel poverty and bloodshed in many regions of the world.
"From Kenya to Brazil to Sri Lanka, there are more weapons than ever before, and they are easier and cheaper to obtain," actress Helen Mirren told a news conference at the world body's headquarters in New York over the phone.
The Academy Award-winning performing artist, who has seen many people living in refugee camps as a result of armed conflicts, said huge supplies of guns in certain areas have created a situation where "young girls are often raped while boys are turned into killing machines."
Mirren and other activists involved in the global campaign to ban small arms transfers think it is time that all governments take responsibility for the individual tragedies perpetrated with the weapons they supply.
"The irresponsible arms trade is a global horror story, and it requires a global solution," said Mary Robinson, the former Irish president who, in the recent past, has also led the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
The solution, according to Robinson, who is now honorary president of the charity group Oxfam International, is that all governments deliver an agreement on a "strict, lifesaving treaty for the sake of millions of people at risk."
Last December, by adopting a UN General Assembly resolution, nearly 160 nations fully acknowledged the need for such a treaty. However, the progress to achieve that end remains very slow.
Though diplomats at the UN are due to submit their proposals to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon by the end of this month, it is not clear how far they will be willing to go to make the treaty compatible with international human rights law.
"If these proposals do not explicitly call for a ban on arms transfers that fuel conflict, poverty, and human rights abuses, then there is a serious risk that the resulting treaty will not save lives," said Oxfam's spokesperson Jennifer Abraham.
Campaigners say they are afraid that some governments that did not support the General Assembly's resolution on the treaty may choose to be spoilers.
"There is a very real risk that skeptical governments, such as the United States, could seek to water down the treaty, rendering it too weak to save lives," said Joseph Dube, spokesperson for the Control Arms Campaign, which also includes Amnesty International and the International Network on Small Arms.
But on a hopeful note, Dube added that over 1 million people around the world who support this treaty "would not allow that to happen."
Seemingly, Dube has a reason to be optimistic, because many government leaders whose countries have suffered from violence and bloodshed have become increasingly supportive of the campaign to crack down on the illegal business in guns.
"The time for us to succeed in stopping arms transfers is now," said Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. "I plead with the governments of the world, arms manufacturers, brokers, and traders not to deny Liberia and every other country this great chance to consolidate peace for our children and ourselves."
As a result of civil war in Liberia, more than 250,000 people were killed and many thousands more forced to flee their homes. The conflict, which came to end only recently, left the country overrun by weapons for years; the violence left the economy in ruin.
UN officials say in 2005 small arms were responsible for the death of half a million people around the world. According to Small Arms Survey, a research project at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International Studies, currently, about 25 percent of the $4 billion annual trade is either illicit or not recorded as required by law.
On Monday, campaigners across the world held meetings in support of the treaty, which they described as "Peoples Consultations." Over the next three months, they plan to hold many more meetings in about 60 countries with the task to find out what ordinary people want the treaty to deliver.
The campaign is running parallel to the official process of collecting input from governments led by the UN chief. Campaign organizers said they will deliver the results of their findings to the UN in October.
