Control Arms campaign
The unregulated international arms trade fuels conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses around the world.
It’s enough to make people want to campaign – hard.
Killer facts
- In an average year, small arms kill around a third of a million men, women and children – and leave hundreds of thousands more injured, disabled, traumatised and grieving
- 1000 people die each day from armed violence, and hundreds of thousands more are displaced, maimed or loose their livelihood.
- Seven of the G8 countries are among the biggest global arms exporters.
Why campaign on the arms trade?
Armed violence – whether in the form of war, community conflict, or domestic abuse – seriously limits people’s ability to earn a living, grow crops, and benefit from education.
The result is that years of development are rapidly undone, and spending on arms diverts billions of dollars that could be spent on vital services like health and education.
Without tougher controls, arms will continue to fuel violence, perpetuate war, human rights abuses, and poverty worldwide.
How we're doing it
In 2003, Oxfam launched its Control Arms campaign in alliance with IANSA & Amnesty International - part of a global push for tighter regulation of the arms trade.
Since then, countless publicity events, demonstrations, and high-level lobbying initiatives, including our Million Faces visual petition, have kept leaders and decision-makers under pressure to act, and control the flow of weapons around the world.
Success
In June 2006, our Million Faces petition was presented to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
And in December of that year, three years of tireless campaigning finally paid off – 153 governments voted at the UN General Assembly to begin work towards on an historic, legally-binding international Arms Trade Treaty.
What now
Getting agreement to work towards an Arms Trade Treaty is truly fantastic progress.
During the negotiation stages to come at the UN, however, some governments will try to weaken any treaty – as they’re against stricter controls on the arms trade.
We need to keep pressing them, to make sure they don’t succeed.
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The uncontrolled arms trade is fuelling conflict, poverty, and human rights abuses
