Embargoed for release: Thursday 9 October 2003 GMT 10:00
/ BST 11:00
The arms trade is out of control
Every day, millions of men, women, and children live in
fear of armed violence. Every minute, one of them is
killed. From the gangs of Rio de Janeiro and Los Angeles,
to the civil wars and armed rebellions in Liberia and
Indonesia, it is conventional arms that are used to do
the killing. The global trade in arms that brings these
weapons into the hands of killers is a big business.
And it is out of control.
- The value of global authorized arms exports is
$21 billion per year.
- There are 639 million small arms in the world, or one for
every ten people, produced by over 1,000 companies in at
least 98 countries.
- 8 million more small arms are produced every year.
- 16 billion units of ammunition are produced each year -
more than two new bullets for every man, woman and child
on the planet.
- Nearly 60 per cent of small arms are in civilian hands.
- It is estimated that 80-90 per cent of all illegal
small arms start in the state-sanctioned trade.
The human cost
The uncontrolled proliferation and misuse of arms by government
forces and armed groups takes a massive human toll in
lost lives.
- More than 500,000 people on average are killed
with conventional arms every year: one person every minute.
- In World War One, 14 per cent
of total casualties were civilian. In World War Two
this grew to 67 per cent.
In some of today’s conflicts the figure is even
higher.
- There are 300,000 child soldiers involved in conflicts.
- Torture and ill-treatment by state officials - mostly armed
police - was persistent in over 70 countries between 1997
and 2000.
- Women and girls are raped at
gunpoint during armed conflict – for
example, 15,700 in Rwanda and 25,000 in Croatia and
Bosnia.
Arms proliferation and misuse destroy individuals' livelihoods
and prevent countries from escaping from poverty.
- One third of countries spend more on the military
than they do on health-care services.
- An average of US$22 billion a year is spent on arms by
countries in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Latin America.
Half of this amount would enable every girl and boy in
those regions to go to primary school.
- El Salvador’s expenditure
on its health services to deal with the effects of
violence amounts to more
than 4 per cent of its GDP.
- Nearly half (42 per cent) of countries with the highest
defence burden rank among the lowest in human development.
For example, Eritrea spends over 20 per cent of its GDP
on military.
- In Africa, economic losses due to war are about $15 billion
per year.
- Pakistan’s total defence
spending is one-third of its annual GDP, or half if
arms-related debt repayments
are included.
The role of the UN Security Council
The world’s most powerful governments -- which are
also the world’s biggest arms suppliers -- have the
greatest responsibility to control the global trade.
- The five permanent members of
the UN Security Council – France, Russia, China, the UK, and the
USA – together account for 88 per cent of the world’s
conventional arms exports; and these exports contribute
regularly to gross abuses of human rights.
- In the last four years the US, UK and France earned more
income from arms exports to Africa, Asia, the Middle East
and Latin America than they provided in aid.
The Control Arms campaign
For these reasons Amnesty International, Oxfam and the
International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) have
come together for ‘Control Arms’, a major
global campaign launched in over 50 countries around
the world. Governments are acting too slowly to control arms. Every
day in work around the world, Oxfam, Amnesty International
and IANSA witness the abuse of arms which fuels conflict,
poverty and violations of human rights. The Control Arms
campaign is calling for urgent and coordinated action,
from the local to the international level, to prevent the
proliferation and misuse of arms. The campaign is calling
for:
- International level: Governments to agree an
Arms Trade Treaty to stop arms being exported to destinations
where they are likely to be used to commit grave violations
of human rights and international humanitarian law.
- Regional level: Governments to develop and strengthen regional
arms control agreements, to uphold human rights and international
humanitarian law.
- National level: Governments to improve state capacity
and their own accountability to control arms transfers
and
protect citizens from armed violence, in accordance with
international laws and standards.
- Community level: Civil society and local government
agencies to take effective action to improve safety at community
level, by reducing the local availability and demand for
arms.
There is little time to lose: in the same minute in which
one person dies from armed violence, 15 new arms are manufactured
for sale. Who will take responsibility for the men, women
and children who will certainly die or suffer from armed
violence in the months and years ahead? The arms trade
is out of control. Urgent action must be taken now.
* taken from Small Arms Survey 2001:
Profiling the Problem, Oxford University Press, 2001 |
