The right to clean air. Breathe clean air. The concept and types of wills

The fact that children breathe air polluted with tobacco smoke increases the risk of death and a number of diseases, such as asthma.

Comprehensive legislative measures can achieve very great results in protecting children from tobacco smoke. However, one directive path from above is not enough. In Ukraine, by law, by orders of ministries, it is forbidden to smoke in educational, sports, and medical institutions. However, our daily experience tells us that such prohibitions are not observed, and children are still exposed to the deadly smoke.

As we have already said, surrounding adults have an unhealthy influence on the child in two ways: they force them to inhale tobacco smoke, and they also stimulate the start of smoking by their example. Who are these adults? Parents, teachers, neighbors, doctors.

So it turns out that almost all adults know and talk about the dangers of smoking, most of the smokers take measures to limit children from smoke. But often such measures are half-hearted, ineffective, often they concern only very young children and do not affect adolescents. Unfortunately, adults who smoke are more justifying, rationalizing, defending their addiction than truly advocating children's rights to free and healthy air.

The need to observe a basic human right cannot be a reason for someone to be offended. This right cannot be ignored for the sake of someone's momentary comfort, friendship, courtesy. Many find it inconvenient to ask them not to smoke. When a smoker asks for permission to smoke while in our company, only some people overcome the awkwardness and refuse. Although smokers very rarely worry about our permission, we politely allow ourselves to be killed. "Yes please! Please don't worry if I cough. For your pleasure, I can not breathe at all while you smoke. Rights must be upheld. They are above politeness and situations, above relationships. This is basic respect. If people smoke in front of me, I consider it disrespectful. If they smoke in front of my child, I regard it as an insult and a threat.

Is there a "right to smoke"?

In a street squabble about the inadmissibility of smoking in my presence, in a conversation at home about the need to go out to smoke in the fresh air, the first exclamation from the smoker is: “I have the right to smoke!”. What follows are harsh statements suggesting that this “right to smoke” extends to any place where the smoker wants to, where he feels comfortable smoking. And I, a person who has the right to clean air, is offered to independently realize this right, i.e. go to a safe place. In the harshest cases, even such words are heard: “You yourself and go outside, since you love fresh air so much!”.

With such arguments, which have nothing to do with the real understanding of human rights, we meet quite often. It is very important to understand what misconceptions and substitution of concepts underlie them.

Smoking is not a natural human need and does not require respect or protection

A person who claims that he has the right to smoke is mistaken in the main: smoking is not one of the basic essences or human needs, which are designated in modern language as human rights (the right to life, health, education, clean water or fresh air, etc. .). Respect and honor enjoys the protection of precisely the necessary and useful to man rights, such as the right to freedom of expression or the right to access information. If smoking were a natural human need, then God would attach a chimney to a person, as one wise man said. None of the legislative acts enshrines the right of a person to commit suicide provoked by third parties. The ability to buy cigarettes and smoke a person is provided by law, since tobacco is a legal, not prohibited drug. However, this alone does not make smoking natural or encouraged.

Smoking is not an individual choice, but a behavior provoked and skillfully directed by the tobacco industry.

If a person claims that his right lies in the right to choose - to smoke or not to smoke, then it is important to realize that it is difficult to call a conscious and balanced choice one that is made under constant pressure from advertising and television, provocations from smokers around. Read more about this in the brochure in this series, Why Tobacco Companies Fund Teen Smoking Prevention Programs.

Smoking is allowed only where it does not harm others

In the field of human rights, there is an immutable rule: my right to wave my arms ends where my neighbor's nose begins. Tobacco smoke is harmful to anyone who inhales it. If a smoker lights up, he is a source of a poisonous substance released into the atmosphere. The toxic effect of the substances contained in tobacco smoke, of course, is reduced if this smoke is diluted with fresh air in the street. In a closed room, except for the smoke just released, bad influence semi-volatile substances accumulated on the surfaces from previous cigarettes smoked in this room also have. To bring the room into a state of safety, ventilation is not enough. That is why many health conscious people around the world choose to stay in hotel rooms that have NEVER been smoked.

Smoking restrictions protect the right to clean air and a healthy environment not only for non-smokers, but also for smokers themselves.

Forced exit from the premises to perform some action is a restriction. It is logical to impose such a restriction on behavior that causes harm, and not on healthy breathing. In the crowd of people waiting for transport, it sometimes seems that almost everyone is smoking, there is smoke from all sides. However, it turns out that dozens of non-smokers suffer from the smoke of one smoker's cigarettes. Who in such a situation is more logical to step aside? A smoker, like a non-smoker, wants to live in a pleasantly smelling house, to smell perfumes, flowers, to feel the cleanliness and well-groomed housing. The smoker wants to breathe clean air, to be healthy. Limiting smoking in a room, especially a residential one, is a way to keep that room clean, fresh, enjoyable for everyone.

Of course, it is convenient if the question of restricting smoking in in public places resolved in legislation. Then it’s clear and understandable to everyone - they don’t smoke here, violators are fined. If restrictions on smoking are not introduced, or they are not observed, then the protection of one's rights to clean air takes the form of personal conflicts, smoking becomes the subject of disputes, insults, and disagreements. Therefore, legislative prohibitions on air pollution with tobacco smoke (and the system of their strict enforcement) are a mechanism for the protection of human rights.

How can we protect the air from tobacco smoke pollution?

For those who are bothered by smoking and who are ready to protect their rights to clean air at home, at work, in public places and in transport, it is important to remember the following rules:

How doctors and teachers can protect children's right to fresh air

At one of our seminars, an anti-tobacco activist demanded a ban on smoking for doctors and teachers, up to depriving them of the right to practice professional activity if they smoke. By and large, this worthy man was right. The words of a doctor that tobacco causes certain diseases, if the doctor himself smokes, sound untrue. A smoking teacher or psychologist, no matter how much they talk about a healthy lifestyle, will be perceived by children as liars.

In a real school and clinic, many adult employees drink and smoke in front of young patients and students. A white coat, the status of a teacher only reinforces the widespread idea in the perception of the child: "Smoking is normal, it's good." Official smoking bans in schools and hospitals have no effect. In the post-Soviet countries, we are very good at ignoring even the most reasonable directives, as once the policy of the party.

How reasonable people we cannot say that smoking is harmful only to adolescents (a significant part of its consequences is reflected in health after 18 years). We cannot classify smoking as a behavior that is allowed only for adults as more conscious individuals (elections, driving a car), because smoking is a self-destructive behavior, it can hardly be called reasonable, balanced behavior (more on this in the already mentioned brochure on preventive programs of the tobacco industry) . Those teachers and doctors who smoke try not to be aware of their addiction, to relate it to their personal life, which has nothing to do with work.

However, attempts by smoking educators to engage in prevention are usually unsuccessful, because when discussing the topic of smoking with adolescents, they subconsciously justify smoking.

Preventive exhortations from a smoker can only have an effect in the context of horrors from his personal life: “I have been smoking for 20 years and have already become impotent” or “Just 10 years of smoking, and all my teeth have already fallen out, my daughter was diagnosed with bronchial asthma.”

Based on the right of children to a clean and healthy environment, it is clear that in medical and educational institutions maximum smoking restrictions should apply, i.e. Smoking is prohibited throughout the building, as well as in front of the entrance to the building. All areas where employees work, vehicles belonging to the institution should be free from tobacco. Restrictions apply to everyone, regardless of status, subordination or time spent in the institution.

Cigarette smoke poisons children, and it doesn't matter who lit this cigarette - a parent who came to pick up a child from school, a teenager or a director in his office. Only with the introduction and maintenance of a complete ban on smoking throughout the school campus is it possible to speak about the effectiveness of any other methods of preventing teenage smoking. Without tangible and equal sanctions for all violators, the ban will not work. Let a committee of activists from among high school students and teachers have the opportunity to impose fines for violating a child's right to fresh air. Additional funding will be useful for holding a KVN or printing anti-tobacco campaign materials.

Everyone entering the territory (and not the school building) must be warned about the total ban on smoking introduced here. On a separate information board, it is good to place materials about what rights of the child are violated in the case of forced smoking, what diseases are caused by smoking, what sanctions, by whom can be imposed for violating the ban, where the money from the fine will be spent.

Of course, in order to introduce such a working regulation, it is important to hold discussions, both among parents and at a meeting of the teaching staff. And let the topic of the meeting be not the high mission of the teacher, but reasonable pragmatism: if children do not smoke in front of them, they get sick much less, learn better educational material they are less likely to become smokers.

Talking to parents about their children's rights

It is at home that children are least protected. There they spend most of the time of the day, where their opinions are rarely considered, where they can hardly influence established rules and relationships. It is in their own home that about half of the children breathe tobacco smoke.

The parent meeting is a good opportunity to improve the situation. Of course, it will not be easy for moms and dads who are tired after a working day to tune in to such a conversation. But after all, the teacher, turning to parents, is not going to educate them, but proposes to solve the problem of morbidity in the classroom together. For example, he might say, “More than half of the class has had respiratory problems in the past month. You probably know that 40% of all diseases of the bronchi, ear-nose-throat, cases of exacerbation of asthma, caries in children are caused by forced inhalation of tobacco smoke. It is very important to change the existing situation, especially now, when children's bodies are weakened and environmental situation, and beriberi ... ". Parents of high school children are invariably worried about the fact that children begin to smoke. Asking questions about this can be a great conversation starter about secondhand smoke and the smoking of adults around you, because children smoke because adults smoke.

It is good to start a discussion by suggesting some complex situation, a controversial statement, like those that we give below. And even if these stories can be somewhat removed from the real life of teenagers' parents, they make it easier to see their mistakes using someone else's example. Then there is a heated discussion, and if you help with useful facts in time, then as a result, the parents themselves will come to wonderful decisions on how to change the situation for the better. Even mom's thinking about how to make dad's smoke-free kitchen is a huge step towards a Smoke-Free Home. Such a conversation does not aim at total cessation of smoking. Our main task is to make parents understand that the health and rights of the child suffer if parents smoke around him.

Below are some conversation starters with questions to guide the discussion.

Respect my rights, do not smoke at home!

This is the story of one young pregnant woman: “My dad smoked for as long as I can remember. Smoked in the kitchen, in the toilet. I was little, so I told him all the time that it was harmful, that I did not want him to die. Then my parents were touched by such my concern. The father didn't quit. She was a teenager - she fought fiercely against her father's smoking, poured facts, proved how harmful it was. Did not help. Even now, when I am pregnant, my father continues to smoke in the apartment where I live. He, as if apologizing, says that he has a strong addiction. But I won't take it anymore. Now the conversation is not about HIS health or life. Here the basic, inalienable right of MY CHILD to life and health is violated. Either smoke or me - that's my ultimatum!"

Smoking in the apartment - how often does this happen? How do non-smokers and children feel if someone smokes in the house? Who and how can change the situation for the better? Can a child independently change established family norms, what help can non-smoking adults provide him?

How often do adults in your family listen to the opinion and position of the child in the process of making decisions that directly concern him? Probably, many have heard about the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It has a separate article 12, which ensures the right of the child to participate (read out). What prevents our families from adhering to such a recommendation? Let's recall examples when our children took part in the discussion: how did they feel about the decisions made jointly? What could be done to ensure that our children are really actively involved in family life?

Safe distance from cigarette

Street, public transport stops, parks are considered the territory open air. It is assumed that the smoke from a cigarette dissipates quickly without causing harm or inconvenience to others. Standing in a dense crowd of people at a bus stop, you can’t say this. And I really want to determine the safe distance from a lit cigarette. After all, the right of a neighbor to wave his arms ends where my nose begins. When it comes to cigarettes, my nose is quite sensitive, I get angry and annoyed even if a person smokes while walking 50 meters ahead of me.

Smokers sometimes try to move away from children on walks, when they light up, how far do they go? What distance from a cigarette do you think is safe for the health of someone who does not smoke? How can a non-smoker ask the smokers at the bus stop not to smoke in front of him?

smoking mom

I am 5 years old and I love my mother very much. I really like to play and talk and walk with her. But on any walk there is a time that I really do not like. This is when she drives me away from her, pushes me away, demands not to approach. During these moments, my mother smokes. I really want to be as slim, beautiful and wonderful as my mother. She laughs when I walk or talk like her. And when I take a pencil into my mouth and inhale the air from it, my mother gets very angry. Probably, there is something in these cigarettes that changes my mother a lot, she becomes angry from them.

What effect might a mother's demands on her child have when she smokes? Who can and should protect a child from forced inhalation of tobacco smoke? What argument would be most convincing for the mother that it is impossible to smoke with a child? From whom should mom hear about the dangers of passive smoking?

Talking to children about exercising their rights

It is very important for children to realize that someone is taking care of them, that they are not alone on the planet, there are documents that can protect them from violence from their parents. Therefore, it makes sense to discuss entire articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child with the guys. In terms of form, the discussion can be structured as follows: first we ask a question about their life, then we choose a little quote(article), read it to the class. Now a discussion of what was meant by this or that article, how you can change the unacceptable, discriminatory situation raised in the introductory part of the conversation. For a conversation with the guys, it is better to use not the full text of the articles of the Convention, but a summary of the main provisions of the article.

The best provision of the rights of the child

Are you familiar with the situation when a mother smokes in front of a child? What feelings does this picture evoke in you? Are you in a situation of forced inhalation of tobacco smoke? What are the health effects of inhaling tobacco smoke?

Article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in summary: All actions in relation to the child must fully take into account his interests. The state must provide adequate care for the child if the parents or other persons entrusted with this responsibility fail to do so.

Of course, in this article we are talking about providing the child with food, conditions for life, for education. Do you think mom or dad smoking in the presence of a child violates this article of the Convention? Who and how could change this situation, protect this child? What actions by the state can protect you, for example, from forced inhalation of tobacco smoke? (smoking law in public places, in apartments, information campaign for parents) What could you do to protect your right to smoke-free air?

Freedom of expression of views and opinions of the child

Let's discuss today who makes decisions in your home? About the arrangement of furniture, about rest, spending money, for example. If something was forbidden in the house, who and how can allow it? And if it was customary in your house to smoke, who could change this rule and introduce a ban on smoking?

Articles 12 and 13 in summary: The child has the right to freely express his or her views, and these views must be taken into account by adults in all matters affecting the child.

The child has the right to express his views, to receive information, to impart information and ideas.

Smoking in the home - does this concern the child living there? Do your parents ask you for your opinion on this? Can your opinion influence decision making in the family? How do your peers feel about the fact that parents smoke at home, or doctors smoke in the hospital, or when the driver lights up in a minibus? Knowing the situation at home, what arguments do you think could help children make their home (entrance, school, clinic) free of tobacco? How can you make sure your opinion is heard?

Access to relevant information

You probably know what it serves, what tobacco advertising is made for? How true do you think it is? What information about tobacco is not on advertising posters? (about harm, deaths) Where, from whom could you get objective information about tobacco?

Article 17 in summary: The state shall ensure that children have access to information and materials from various sources, it shall encourage the dissemination by the media of materials conducive to the social and cultural development of the child, and shall take steps to protect children from harmful information.

Tobacco advertising - is it harmful or useful information? How could you and other children be kept away from tobacco advertising? What kind of TV spots would you come up with so that all children in the country have access to objective information about tobacco (they should not be boring and instructive)?

Standard of living

Do you think your family satisfies all the necessary needs in food, clothing, education? What do you and your family lack money for, what do you save on?

Article 27 in summary: Every child has the right to a standard of living adequate for his physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. Parents have the primary responsibility for providing the necessary standard of living. The duty of the state is to create appropriate conditions for the realization of this responsibility. State obligations may include the provision of material assistance to parents and their children.

Suppose one of the parents smokes. How much money per month family budget flies into the pipe: we calculate by the average cost of a pack or by real situation someone from the class. Now we add to this sum the possible cost of drugs for the treatment of cardiovascular or pulmonary diseases caused by smoking. Let's think about what you could buy with this money?