Cluster munitions banned!

David Miliband (seated) signing the Oslo Treaty, witnessed by campaigners including Oxfam's Anna MacDonald (sixth from right).

Earlier this year, more than 110 countries reached agreement on a groundbreaking Treaty to ban cluster bombs. The signing of the Treaty took place in Oslo this week. Oxfam campaigner Anna MacDonald was there to witness the historic event.

"We Made it Happen" is the strapline of the Cluster Munition Signing Conference in Oslo, as campaigners, governments and UN organisations celebrate together the signing by nearly 100 countries of the Cluster Munition Convention.

And there's good reason to celebrate. The Treaty bans the production, stockpile, transfer and use of all cluster munitions, and will stop the humanitarian suffering that has been caused by these indiscriminate weapons.

Soraj Habib was just 10 years old when he picked up a brightly coloured object in a park near his home in Afghanistan, which then exploded killing his cousin, and causing Soraj to lose his legs.

On Thursday Soraj, who is now 17, was on stage at the closing ceremony with many other cluster munition survivors, who have played a central role in this powerful campaign, lobbying governments and telling their stories through the media. It was one of the most moving moments of the week, and made me feel enormously proud to have been part of this international campaign.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband signed the Treaty for the UK, and in his speech acknowledged the big role played by campaigners in achieving the Treaty, and called on all not in Oslo to join the Treaty. UK support was significant in persuading other governments to join, and followed months of intensive lobbing by UK campaigners.

For over 40 years cluster bombs have killed and injured civilians during and after conflict. Unexploded cluster munitions continue to kill and injure for days, months, even decades after conflict. Tens of thousands of civilians worldwide have been killed or injured by the weapon, many of them children.

The Treaty will help ensure that survivors, including their families and communities, receive concrete and measurable victim assistance, including physical and psycho-social needs, equality, rights and national action plans.

The next step is for individual governments to now ratify the Treaty in their own parliaments, and to start implementing it.

The UK has already started to destroy its stockpiles of cluster bombs, as have several other governments.

No-one watching the events in Oslo this week could have any doubt that campaigning works - together we really did Make it Happen!

Soraj Habib (fourth from left), a cluster bomb survivor from Afghanistan, and other campaigners witness the Afghan Government signing the Treaty.

Read more about the campaign at the Cluster Munition Coalition website stopclustermuntions.org