In the United Arab Emirates, a national taskforce is working nowadays on a strategy to ban smoking for adults under the age of eighteen.
The United Arab Emirates General Women's Union (GWU), Ministries of Health, Information and Culture, Interior, Justice, Islamic Affairs and Awqaf, Labor and Social Affairs, and Education as well as other concerned organizations are cooperating in designing the anti-smoking strategy, according to Emirates News Agency.
GWU's Director Noura Al Suweidi said the strategy seeks to ensure the health, social and psychological stability of the UAE family and to fight the menace of smoking amongst children.
“The main job of the taskforce is to draft a federal law to ban the sale of cigarettes to young people under 18 years old,” she expressed, adding that the legislation will be submitted to the cabinet for final approval.
“The smoking phenomenon is depleting economic sources of the family and harming it psychological well-being”, she warned.
In order to make sure that future generations are safe, she added, a nation-wide awareness and media campaign to alert children of the adverse negatives of smoking is deeply required.
In addition, she called for a review of the advertising policy that advances the use of tobacco and its products. (Albawaba.com)
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