Oxford Socially Responsible Investment Campaign

Nestle

Posted on 09/05/05 by admin

Not all CRs across Oxford boycott Nestle, but many do. This is why: the below facts show that in a definite, concrete sense Nestle is responsible for the death of huge numbers of infants every year, the world over.

* Nestle controls 40% of the world market for baby milk.
* The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that reversing the decline in breastfeeding, the corollary of the increase in the use of baby milk substitutes, could save 1.5 million infant lives around the world each year about 4,000 every day.
* This is principally because where water is unsafe a bottle-fed child is up to 25 times more likely to die as a result of diarrhoea than a breastfed child.
* Therefore the WHO has developed an International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. It provides against companies marketing their substitutes aggressively and with the use of lies.
* Nestle is the largest single source of violations of this code: frequent and significant. They make an absolutely massive profit every year.
* They are the target of the largest outstanding consumer boycott in the UK.

From a UNICEF report:
"Marketing practices that undermine breastfeeding are potentially hazardous wherever they are pursued: in the developing world, WHO estimates that some 1.5 million children die each year because they are not adequately breastfed. These facts are not in dispute."

What you can do:
- Boycott Nestle.
- Get your JCR to Boycott Nestle: check out the student activism section of the website below, or e-mail thomas.dale@ccc.ox.ac.uk for advice.

Nestle products include: Aero, Drifter, Fruit Pastilles, Polo, Yorkie, Toffee Crisp, Kit-Kat, Lion Bar. (Other than confectionary Nescafe, numerous cereals and some brands of shampoo, e.g. Garnier, Loreal). Full list at: http://www.babymilkaction.org/pages/products.html

More information from: http://www.babymilkaction.org

References to documents supporting the above assertions (mostly from WHO, UNICEF and UNESCO reports) can be found at this page; http://www.babymilkaction.org/boycott/prmachine.html , which also contains reference to Nestlés attempts to refute the allegations.