Defining Tobacco Control As an Important Human Right and Development Goal, Spring 2011

The purpose of this paper is to advance tobacco control within a powerful rights and development framework in Turkey. The integration of a human rights based approach to the control of tobacco is a powerful tool in the protection of the rights of women and children. Turkey is a party to the the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) which should be read in the context of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which affirm a more holistic approach to tobacco control that takes into account the way in which the tobacco industry markets its harmful products and the way in which the exposure to secondhand smoke erode women’s andchildren’s indivisible rights to equality, health, food and reproductive rights. We conclude finally that strengthening tobacco control within the context of the rights of women and children will help augment Turkey’s goals of accession to the membership of the European Union.