Do you recognize these four rights? The right to safety, information, choice and to be heard are the official consumer rights, since 27 years annually celebrated on a World Consumer Rights Day on 15th of March. They are your rights, because 'Consumers by definition, include us all', as John F. Kennedy, the founder of WCRD day once said, 'They are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. Yet they are the only important group... whose views are often not heard'.
The Bill of Consumer Rights was recognized, legitimated and acknowledged by all members of United Nations. As Guidelines for Consumer Protection it was even expanded to the list of eight rights:
- to satisfaction of basic needs,
- to safety (of the products to consumers life),
- to be informed (honest labeling),
- to choose,
- to be heard (in the process of developing the products and well as governmental policies),
- to redress (to receive satisfactory settlement for unsatisfactory services),
- to consumer education (being aware of basic consumer rights and responsibilities and how to act on them),
- and the right to healthy environment (understood in terms of sustainable development).
Even though internationally acknowledged, consumer rights are being ignored and violated both by governments and producers and retailers. It sometimes seems that unofficially it was made much shorter into the list of right to watch commercials and the right to buy, buy, buy.
On this symbolic day, 2nd Gaia seminar is starting in Rome! Twenty activists from Italy, Hungary, Serbia, Poland, Macedonia, Croatia and Georgia will be learning and working on new ideas for making change in the world around us!
In your activities celebrating WCRD you can focus on many different things, like food safety, consumer education, responsible shopping and more. During the Gaia event we will touch those topics, as well as we will work on how to implement them in practice during our projects. To learn more, follow the creatclimate4peace blog and remember to leave your comments!
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