Taipei, March 1 (CNA) A three-day regional workshop is being held in Taipei from March 1-3 to attack the issue of women and tobacco control in Southeast Asia, which the organizers said has been a problem ignored for far too long.
"The last time such a meeting was held was in Kobe in 1999, " said Huang Song-lih, Secretary-General of the Taiwan International Medical Alliance (TIMA), which is co-organizing the workshop with the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA).
Tobacco control experts, government officials and feminists from a dozen Asian countries are participating in the workshop to address the increasing prevalence of smoking in women and young girls, gender-specific tobacco control policy and to discuss basic issues such as why women smoke.
The goal for the meeting is that each participating country can map out an action plan that can be implemented after wide-ranging discussion and exchanges, Huang said.
"Actually, Asia has done quite well in tobacco control compared to the rest of the world, " claimed Dr. Judith Mackay, Director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control, who is based in Hong Kong.
Overall, the smoking rate among women in Asia is still very low, Mackay noted. "But we have concerns for several reason. First of all, tobacco companies are targeting women in their marketing plans. Secondly, general health education is not as successful as it should be. Thirdly, there is a legislation problem, " she said.
The ratio of smoking adult Taiwanese women in 2004 was 4.54 percent, according to the latest statistics released by the Department of Health (DOH).