Skip to main content

15 March 2017: World Consumer Rights Day



World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) is an awareness day observed annually on 15 March. The WCRD was first celebrated in 1983 and became an important annual occasion for mobilizing citizen action and solidarity within the international consumer movement. The day is an opportunity for promoting the basic rights of all consumers.

The day takes place on 15 March to mark the definition of consumer rights, outlined by US President John F. Kennedy. He was the first world leader to set out a vision of consumer rights recognizing the importance of consumers as a group. Kennedy gave the American consumer four basic rights: 1) the right to safety, 2) the right to choose, 2) the right to information and, 4) the right to be heard.

The day is organized by Consumers International (CI), which is the world federation of consumer groups that serves as the only independent and authoritative global voice for consumers. Founded in 1960, CI currently has over 220 member organizations in 115 countries around the world.

Each year the CI Council selects a theme for the following World Consumer Rights Day activities, for example: “Our money, our rights” in 2010, “Consumers and water” in 2004 or “Unethical Drug Promotion” in 2007.

The 2017 theme for World Consumer Rights Day is ‘Building a Digital World Consumers can Trust.’

Digital technology is having a dramatic impact on consumers around the world, creating many new benefits including better communication, access to information and greater choice and convenience. While consumers benefit from these technologies, there are questions about how to establish access to the internet for the many consumers who are not connected; how to improve the quality of services; which online services and products consumers can trust; and what happens to the data they share online.

To address these issues and promote access, participation and innovation in digital technology CI is working to create a #BetterDigitalWorld.



Consumers International will also be partnering with the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) and the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV) to tackle the vital and current issue of building better consumer rights in the digital world.

As part of the partnership CI, BMJV and VZBV will co-host a G20 consumer summit on 15 March 2017 in Berlin, Germany.






MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more