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Representatives of several founding organisations of The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), including Handicap International, are today meeting in New York to celebrate the movement’s twentieth anniversary. This meeting will provide an opportunity to review the highlights of the last two decades, and turn attention to new avenues for furthering disarmament.
Immense progress has been made since a handful of men and women first started campaigning twenty years ago. In October 1992, six organisations founded this coalition, born out of their refusal to accept the intolerable scourge of antipersonnel landmines. At the time, almost 20,000 people were being killed or maimed by these weapons every year, and the vast majority of these victims were civilians.
The mobilisation of civil society and organisations such as Handicap International resulted, after five years of campaigning, in the signing of the Ottawa Mine Ban Treaty prohibiting the production, use, storage and trading of these weapons. This was the first time in history that a conventional weapon was banned. In December 1997, the work of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines was honoured when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“Our perseverance finally won out. Our persistence gave us the credibility required to campaign against other weapons such as cluster bombs, also outlawed with the adoption of the Oslo Treaty. Our teams today work with the same perseverance which spurs them on to work tirelessly against these barbaric weapons,” explains Dr Jean-Baptiste Richardier, co-founder of Handicap International.
Today the ICBL is made up of almost 1,500 organisations from over 100 countries. The Mine Ban Treaty has had a significant impact:
• 160 countries are State Parties to the treaty, representing 80% of the world’s nations.
• Almost 4,000 km² of mined land has been cleared.
• Almost 45 million landmines have been destroyed in 87 countries by demining operations.
• Almost 90 million landmines stockpiled by the State Parties have been destroyed.
• Today, no States, even those who are not party to the Ottawa Treaty, export antipersonnel landmines.
• The number of new victims of landmines and explosive remnants of war has dropped significantly: Less than 5,000 recorded cases per year.
The campaign must go on to ensure that the founding principle of a world without landmines does not just remain a utopian vision but becomes a concrete reality. Unfortunately, some governments continue to use antipersonnel landmines, such as Libya, Israel and Burma in 2011 and Syria in 2012. Major nations such as Russia, the United States, Israel, India and Pakistan have still not signed up to the Mine Ban Treaty.
On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, the ICBL is calling on the international community to finish its work to eradicate antipersonnel landmines by immediately stopping all use of these weapons and reinforcing mine clearance and victim assistance work. The campaign is also urging the remaining non-signatory States to become parties to the Treaty.
Handicap International fully supports this initiative. For the last 30 years, the organisation has been working ceaselessly to clear mined land, raise the awareness of threatened populations, provide orthopaedic fitting for victims and ensure their inclusion in society. It has become a representative on the international stage for the millions of people living under the threat of these weapons, thus ensuring they are never forgotten.
“We continue to take action in the name of solidarity, to provide tangible, practical, viable solutions which take communities and community solidarity into account. This community solidarity has never failed: In every culture, at every point on the globe, families never give up. It is our duty, our responsibility to follow their example,” declared Jean-Baptiste Richardier.
Handicap International’s work will be honoured at the disarmament summit to be held by Human Rights Watch on 20th and 21st October in New York. The 20th anniversary of the ICBL will provide the organisations present with the perfect opportunity to reiterate their unfailing determination to fight against injustice.
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NOTES TO EDITORS
For more information or interviews please contact:
Tom Shelton
Communication Officer, Handicap International UK
Tel: +44 (0)870 774 3737 | Direct: +44 (0)203 463 2377
Mob: +44 (0)7508 820 520
Email: tom.shelton@hi-uk.org
About Handicap International
Handicap International is an international aid organisation working in situations of poverty and exclusion, conflict and disaster in 60 countries worldwide. Its activities include clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance, educating communities about the risks, supporting survivors and campaigning for their rights.
Handicap International is a co-laureate of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize and a founding member of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and the Cluster Munition Coalition.
www.handicap-international.org.uk
www.facebook.com/HandicapInternationalUk
www.twitter.com/hi_uk
