Abstract

Arms are out of control. Arms kill more than half a million men, women, and children on average every year. Many thousands more are maimed, or tortured, or forced to flee their homes. The uncontrolled proliferation of arms fuels human rights violations, escalates conflicts, and intensifies poverty. The time for world leaders to act is now. to confront this crisis, Oxfam, Amnesty International, and the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) have together launched an international campaign calling for effective arms controls to make people genuinely safer from the threat of armed violence. This volume provides a hard-hitting analysis of how abuse of small arms across the world is fuelling poverty and suffering.