More women smoking worldwide: Report

Washington: More women are lighting up cigarettes around the world even as the smoking rate declines for men, activists attending an anti-smoking conference said.

About 12 per cent of women worldwide smoke, and that figure is expected to rise to 20 per cent by 2025, according to a report by the International Network of Women Against Tobacco, which relied on the World Health Organisation data

About 48 per cent of men smoke, but that number is expected to decline, according to the report released Thursday at a conference sponsored by the American Cancer Society.

Project leader on the report, Lorraine Greaves said that tobacco company marketing is nudging up the female smoking rate in developing countries, much as it did in the US in the 1960s and 1970s.

Greaves, also the executive director of the British Columbia Centre of Excellence for Women's Health, said that billboard advertisements for cigarettes overseas often show attractive, modern-looking women smoking.

Billboard advertisements are banned in the US under a 1998 agreement between the sates and cigarette makers.

The report said ad campaigns geared toward women overseas have "served to change cultural beliefs about women and smoking," and it cited several countries where such shifts had occurred.

For example, it noted that in Turkey, where it used to be "quite unacceptable for a woman to be seen with a cigarette," the rate of smoking among women is now similar to that of men.

Greaves and other women's health advocates noted that a World Health Organisation treaty aimed at curtailing tobacco use contains measures designed to cut women's smoking rates, including calling for gender-specific strategies.

The United States has signed but not sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification.

"Where is the good will?” said legal adviser to the South African Ministry of Health asked, Patricia Lambert, referring to the delay.

World Health Organisation officials also said that they intended to republish and distribute internationally a California study that cited a causal link between second hand smoke and breast cancer.

The US Surgeon general has said that there isn't enough evidence to conclude a causal link exists.