Control Arms
![A boy plays football near a bullet-scarred wall. [Photo credit: Control Arms]](../control_arms/images/control-arms184.jpg "A boy plays football near a bullet-scarred wall. [Photo credit: Control Arms]")
2000 people die each day from armed violence. 26 million people are currently displaced within their own countries by armed conflict. And around 30 conflicts still continue around the world today.
The unregulated arms trade fuels conflict, poverty and serious human rights abuses. It also limits people's ability to earn a living, grow crops, and benefit from education, whilst diverting money that should be used for vital services such as health care.
The Control Arms campaign was set up to bring an end to the unregulated arms trade.
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The story so far
Currently there are no comprehensive, legally binding international rules governing the arms trade, and gaps and loopholes in national controls mean weapons often end up in conflict zones or in the hands of human rights abusers.
In 2003, Oxfam launched its Control Arms campaign in alliance with The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) and Amnesty International as part of a global push for tighter regulation of the arms trade.
Since then, countless publicity events, demonstrations, and high-level lobbying initiatives have kept leaders and decision-makers under pressure to act and to control the flow of weapons around the world.
In June 2006, the 'Million Faces' petition was presented to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. And in December of that year 153 governments voted at the UN General Assembly to begin work towards on a historic, legally-binding international Arms Trade Treaty.
Three years later in 2009 after pressure from the Control Arms campaign, 153 countries again voted to start negotiations on the Arms Trade Treaty, and to conclude negotiations in 2012. This historic step is a major achievement for the millions of campaigners across the world who were asking for negotiations to start immediately.
Find out what happened at the UN in October 2009 at ConflictVoice.
What next?
The UN voting in favour is a great step forward, but during the forthcoming negotiation stages, some governments will try to weaken any treaty - as they're against stricter controls on the arms trade. We need to keep pressing them, to make sure they don't succeed.
How you can help
We need to keep the pressure up to make sure the final Treaty is as strong and robust as possible. We will be campaigning in the run up to each session at the UN discussing the Treaty. Sign up to the campaign at controlarms.org and we'll keep you up to date with all the ways you can help.
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Campaign news, views and information from the Control Arms website
Stories of conflict
The uncontrolled arms trade is fuelling conflict, poverty, and human rights abuses
