Medical student action and the “Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence 2009"
Published in the New
Zealand Medical Journal on June 19, 2009
15–21
June 2009 is the “Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence” during
which activists around the world raise awareness, campaign for better gun laws
and push for stronger regulation of the global arms trade.
Globally, small
arms and light weapons kill an estimated 1000 people per day, the majority of
whom are civilians. Injury from gun violence is a preventable public health problem.1
In New Zealand, medical students are actively working to prevent gun violence
in the Pacific. The students, who are members of the New Zealand Branch of the
Nobel Peace Prize winning organisation, the International Physicians for the Prevention
of Nuclear War (IPPNW), have contributed to a Pacific-focussed programme of arms
control and disarmament to compliment other major
IPPNW programmes in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia (http://www.ippnw.org/Programs/AFP/index.html).
In particular, a group of University of Auckland students are currently assessing
the success of the United Nations-supervised disarmament programme that followed
the decade of war in Bougainville in the North Solomons Province of Papua New
Guinea (PNG). Peace negotiations were brokered by the New Zealand Government in
1998, but by the time the conflict ended, 10% of the population of Bougainville
or approximately 15,000 civilians had died.
At present semi-automatic
weapon fire is heard regularly in Arawa, the former capital of Bougainville (NZ
Volunteer Service Abroad workers, personal communications). In the absence of
sustained disarmament, the continued availability of weapons can lead to increased
numbers of deaths and a level of weapons related injuries that, in some cases,
is only slightly reduced from that observed during a period of conflict.2 This
research project uses retrospective analysis of hospital records to assess the
relative frequency of weapon injuries during and after periods of war and disarmament.
It has found that such hospital data can identify groups at risk of injury. For
example, preliminary results suggest subsistence farmers are being injured and
killed by accidentally detonating unexploded ordnance left from the conflict.
Once these risk factors have been identified, interventions can be designed to
prevent further injuries and deaths.
In another project, one of us (AW)
as a medical student on his elective, has researched the human cost of small arms
proliferation by quantifying the public health consequences of tribal wars in
the highlands of PNG. The initial findings were presented at the 44th Medical
Society of Papua New Guinea Symposium in 20083 and it is hoped that this work
will be further developed to contribute to civil society campaigns such as the
Coalition to Stop Gun Violence PNG (which includes Oxfam and the United Nations
Development Program). NZMJ 19 June 2009, Vol 122 No 1297; ISSN 1175 8716 Page
99 URL: http://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/122-1297/3673/ ©NZMA
These
campaigns need credible evidence and engaging ‘One Bullet Stories’4
so as to inform and motivate key decisionmakers to take action on gun control
policy reforms. This work aims to support the ongoing exploration of having a
Pacific-wide injury surveillance system that would provide key epidemiological
information to inform violent injury prevention and control strategies.
The
longer term goal is a “Gun Free Pacific Zone” similar to the “Nuclear
Weapon Free Pacific Zone” which, 20 years later, is only 4 countries short
of being a Nuclear Weapons Free Southern Hemisphere.
Andrew Winnington
House Officer, Auckland District Health Board, Auckland apwinnington@gmail.com
Nick Wilson Senior Lecturer, University of Otago Wellington
Competing
interests: The authors are members of the non-profit organisation: International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (NZ Branch). Funding for the research
in the PNG Highlands and in Bougainville was provided by Peace and Disarmament
Education Trust.
References: 1. Valenti M, Ormhaug C, Mtonga R, Loretz
J. Armed violence: a health problem, a public health approach. Journal of Public
Health Policy 2007;28:389–400. 2. Meddings D. Weapons injuries during and
after periods of conflict: retrospective analysis. BMJ 1997;315:1417–20.
3. Winnington A. The Public Health Consequences of Tribal Gun Violence in the
Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Abstract. Proceedings of the
44th Papua New Guinea Annual Medical Symposium. Rabaul, Papua New Guinea; 2008,
p 20. 4. International Student Movement of IPPNW One Bullet Stories.