The Traveling Docudays UA joins the global informational campaign Little Targets of Tobacco Giants. This social clip, created by the Center for Civic Representation “Life” and Docudays UA, aims to draw public attention to the tricks used by tobacco producers to involve children in smoking.

A study by the School of Public Health at the John Hopkins University (USA) and the Life NGO shows that Ukrainian schools are surrounded by tobacco ads. Tobacco companies aim their marketing tricks at children, to find replacement for smokers with years of experience, who either die or give up smoking. According to Life NGO, 90 percent of smokers smoke their first cigarette before they turn 18, that is, when they are still underage. It means that cigarette marketing involves them in substance abuse when they are very young. The many bright store windows filled with cigarettes, which children see in the street and in stores, are a kind of psychological violence. The industry places cigarettes at children’s eye level, next to swets and children’s goods, using lighting and bright backgrounds. That way, it violates children’s basic rights to health, life and healthy development.

In order to protect children from the tobacco industry, the parliament registered bills on prohibiting the placement of tobacco products in store windows (bill 4030a) and on prohibiting flavored cigarettes, tobacco ads on the Internet, sales of e-cigarettes to underage people, and enlarging the scary pictures on cigarette packs (bill 2820).