Make Trade Fair Global Week of Action

Ten million people from 70 countries are protesting against unfair trade rules this week (April 10-16).

The Global Week of Action will see Oxfam joining forces with campaigners, trade unions and international artists to demand that world leaders honor their promises to change the rigged rules of world trade. Events will be held in cities across the world.

The Global Week of Action is a show of solidarity with poor farmers to change a global trading system that today sees:

• One billion people – most of them farmers and farm workers – living on a $1 or less a day.
• Rich countries forcing poor ones to open their markets and then dumping excess crops on them, destroying farming communities, threatening food security and plunging millions into deeper poverty.
• Rich countries spend $100 billion a year to protect their markets with tariffs, quotas and subsidies – twice as much as they provide in aid for developing countries.

Oxfam has brought together a number of leading musicians and actors including Colin Firth, Antonio Banderas, Gael Bernal Garcia, Chris Martin, Michael Stipe, Thom Yorke, Damon Albarn and Jamelia to highlight the injustice of global trade rules and agricultural dumping on poor countries.

Critically acclaimed photographer Greg Williams photographed the artists for a series of unique photographs to support Oxfam's Make Trade Fair campaign. These are available for general release on April 9.

On April 11, Oxfam will publish a new report “Kicking down the Door” which exposes how rich countries are forcing poor ones to open their markets and dumping surplus crops, and how the rice trade is a graphic example of this global scandal.

The Global Week Of Action is one of a number of events leading up to the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland in July and the World Trade Organization’s ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December.