Infants and young children are the first victims of pollution and climate change. The negative impacts of pollution and climate change affect all people, but especially the world’s most vulnerable population: newborns, infants and young children, whose immune and reproductive systems are still immature. Even the healthy development of the foetus during intrauterine life can […]

IBFAN developed a slideshow to help breastfeeding advocates from around the world understanding conflicts of interest to safeguard democratic & evidence-based health and nutrition governance. This slideshow was part a capacity building workshop led by IBFAN in December 2015 in London and was prepared by Judith Richter, recognized expert on public interest safeguards in the field of […]

Working document, based on ILO database on Maternity Protection, sorted region by region and country by country

Contributions to the legal building blocks of the Treaty regarding the scope, the state duty to protect and direct obligations for corporations

By Friends of the Earth Europe, Brot für die Welt (Social Service Agency of the Protestant Church in Germany), SOMO (Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations), CIDSE (International Alliance of Catholic Development Agencies), IBFAN (International Baby Food Action Network), IBFAN-GIFA (Geneva Infant Feeding Association), Global Policy Forum

FIAN International and IBFAN’s joint input towards the elaboration of the General Comment on the Rights of Adolescents of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (March 2015). This contribution seeks to provide information and recommendations about the right to adequate food and nutrition of adolescents and related rights (e.g. the right to health, the […]

BPNI / IBFAN Asia’s latest publication “Formula for Disaster: weighing the impact of formula feeding Vs breastfeeding on environment” is out now. The path breaking publication aims to raise awareness of the positive impact of breastfeeding on our environment and throws light on the negative impact of formula feeding. This publication positions formula feeding as […]

Enshrined in the article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, breastfeeding is protected against undermining marketing practices by the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. However, the misconduct of baby food companies continues to be a key cause for poor breastfeeding practices. Recently, the report Breaking the Rules 2014 highlighted the new trend […]

Baby Milk Action, a campaign group that monitors the baby food industry against United Nations marketing standards, says it has received a letter (dated 9 July 2014) from the Executive Director of the UN Global Compact, Mr Georg Kell, that confirms its view that the corporate accountability initiative is ‘worse than useless and lacking in integrity’. Link […]

Infant and children mortality is still a major concern globally. Breastfeeding has proven to be one of the most effective, low-cost interventions to save children’s lives. In order to protect breastfeeding, in 1981, the World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (the Code), to date completed and extended by fifteen subsequent relevant WHA resolutions. The Code aims to ensure that parents can make fully informed decisions about infant and young child feeding by banning marketing practices that undermine breastfeeding. […] However, since 1981, only 35 countries have fully implemented the Code. In absence of effective marketing regulation, and notwithstanding their obligation under human rights law, baby food companies are systematically violating the Code provisions by malevolent marketing practices and tactics that mislead consumers and health professionals. […]

Le nouveau rapport « Breaking the Rules » (en anglais), publié en janvier 2014 par IBFAN-ICDC (IBFAN International Code Documentation Centre), détaille les tendances mondiales en matière de commercialisation des fabricants d’aliments pour bébés et dénonce les violations du Code international de commercialisation des substituts du lait maternel et résolutions ultérieures pertinentes de l’Assemblée Mondiale de la Santé, entre […]