Public Health on Top

As a fruitful outcome of intervention of PROGGA and Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA), the bdjobs authority had to remove advertisement of BATB and JTI from its website. These two multinational tobacco giants have been advertising on this platform, currently the most popular job-hunting web portal in Bangladesh, with web-links directed to their own company websites under the category of Hot Jobs. This is clearly a strategy to promote their brands among the youth of Bangladesh as more than 100,000 young job-seekers visit bdjobs.com at least once everyday to search for jobs. It should be mentioned that such advertisement of tobacco companies is completely banned under the existing tobacco control law of Bangladesh. However, the law, so far, has not stopped the tobacco companies from resorting to new strategies to attract the youth to its brand and products. As per GATS 2017, around 40 percent of the country’s adult still see advertisement and promotions of cigarettes on a regular basis which is undoubtedly quite alarming.
The coming days will see more and more advertisements and newer aggressive strategies from tobacco companies. Japan Tobacco Inc. (JTI) has already entered the country’s tobacco market. According to knowledgeable sources, China Tobacco is also interested in expanding its business in Bangladesh. So, Bangladesh, a country where 49 percent of total population is youth, has become a lucrative market for tobacco companies. The country is currently going through ‘Demographic Dividend’ stage as the working age population is larger than its dependent population. This population participate in economic activities and contribute in expanding the GDP. Such opportunity comes only once in the history of a nation. However, the use of tobacco is threatening the well-being of this thriving working age population, leading them to premature death and loss of productivity. To battle this menace, it is urgent to implement TC law effectively, adopt policies in line with FCTC Article 5.3 and ban any type of foreign investment in tobacco industry.