|
|
|
|
|
1. Consumer or Citizen
State recognizes people as citizens, whereas markets treat people as consumers and value them as customers.
Even markets are located within the States. And peoples status as citizens is more overarching than their status
as consumers. Thus peoples rights as consumers are interlinked with their rights as citizens; both need to be
pro-actively promoted and protected from predatory factors in the market and the State. In particular, poorer
citizen-consumers, who do not have the “dollars” to make the market respond to the “one dollar, one vote”
principle, do have the right to make the state – and hence the market respond on the “one person one vote”
principle. This standpoint also links up the consumer movement with other human rights movement.
In the age of globalization, this realization has become more important than ever before. The former President
of Consumers International, Rhoda Karpatkin, said that "Consumer activism is exercising citizenship".
2. Who is Consumer?
Consumption is basic to human survival and it must be shared, strengthening, socially responsible and sustainable.
Therefore, we are all consumers, whether of goods or of services, whether purchased or otherwise, and whether
provided by the market or the public sector.
While buying in the marketplace is one important form of consumption, it is not necessary to be a customer to
qualify as a consumer. However, the concept has been associated with market so closely that it has assumed a very
restrictive
meaning. In a country crippled with poverty, where we pay heavily but indirectly for goods and services from our
State (including infrastructure development, defense, good governance, and so on), we are citizen-consumers.
While the market has at least some level of self-corrective mechanisms to meet the demands of customers, the
State in Pakistan does not have the most basic democratic channels to meet the demands of its citizens.
Therefore, it is crucial to broaden our understanding about consumers in order to be inclusive of poor citizens
and their rights as consumers whom markets can ignore but the State and the consumer movement cannot.
A consumer is a person who:
- re-supplying them in trade, or
- consuming them in the course of a process of production or manufacture, or
- in the case of goods, repairing or treating in trade other goods or fixtures on land;
Acquire in relation to:
-
goods, includes obtain by way of gift, purchase, exchange, and taken on lease, hire or hire-purchase;
- services, includes accept;
- interests in land, includes obtain by way of gift, purchase, exchange, lease, tenancy or license.
3. What are Consumer Rights?
Based on the United Nations Guidelines for Consumer Protection, 1985 (to which Pakistan is a signatory), the
global umbrella body Consumers International articulated a set of eight, internationally accepted consumer rights,
that need to be actively protected and promoted.
The Right to Basic Needs means the right to basic goods and services which guarantee survival. It includes
adequate food, clothing, shelter, health care, education and sanitation.
The Right to Safety means the right to be protected against products, production processes and services
which are hazardous to health or life. It includes concern for consumer long-term interests as well as their
immediate requirements.
The Right to Be Informed means the right to be given the facts needed to make an informed choice or
decision. Consumers must be provided with adequate information enabling them to act wisely and responsibly.
They must also be protected from misleading or inaccurate publicity material, whether included in advertising,
labeling, packaging or by any other means.
The Right to Choose means the right to have access to a variety of products and services at competitive
prices and, in the case of monopolies, to have an assurance of satisfactory quality and service at a fair price.
The Right to Be Heard means the right to advocate consumers’ interests with a view to their receiving full
and sympathetic consideration in the formulation and execution of economic and other policies. It includes the
right of representation in government and other policy-making bodies as well as in the development of products
and services before they are produced or set up.
The Right of Redress means the right to a fair settlement of just claims. It includes the right to receive
compensation for misrepresentation of shoddy goods or unsatisfactory services and the availability of acceptable
forms of legal aid or redress for small claims where necessary.
The Right to Consumer Education means the right to acquire to knowledge and skills to be an informed
consumer throughout life. The right to consumer education incorporates the right to the knowledge and skills
needed for taking action to influence factors affecting decisions.
The Right to a Healthy Environment means the right to a physical environment that will enhance quality of
life. It includes protection against environmental dangers over which the individual has no control. It
acknowledges the need to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.
4. What are Consumer Responsibilities?
Consumers International also articulated five basic responsibilities of all consumers.
Critical Awareness – the responsibility to be more alert and questioning about the price and quality of goods
and services we consume.
Action – the responsibility to assert ourselves by acting to ensure that we get a fair deal. As long as we remain
passive consumers, we will continue to be exploited and manipulated
Social Concern – the responsibility to consider the impacts of our consumption patterns and lifestyles on other
citizens, especially the poor, disadvantaged or powerless consumers, whether they be in the local, national or
international community.
Environmental Awareness – the responsibility to realize the environmental costs and consequences of our
consumption patterns and lifestyles. We should recognize our individual and collective social responsibility
conserve natural resources and to preserve earth for present and future generations.
Solidarity – the responsibility to come together and organize consumers in order to enhance the strength and
influence required to promote and protect our interests.
5. Why Consumer Protection?
Citizens need protection of their consumer rights in three ways:
-
in the market place against problem goods and services; against bad trade practices; exploitative prices and unethical marketing;
-
from governments as supplier of basic goods and services for poor and vulnerable consumers; as formulators of public polices so that they are just, equitable and protective; and as provider of good governance;
-
from the State to provide reliable consumer protection structures which ensure safety against weaknesses of the market and its failures and which ensure good government.
The importance for consumer protection has assumed renewed importance today. Globalization and its various
instruments have posed new challenges for consumer protection especially in poor countries.
The greatest challenge for consumer movement today is to raise cogent and effective voice for bringing fairness
in free market economy at local, national and global levels.
6. Sectoral challenges facing citizen-consumers in Pakistan
It is well recognized that there is a general lack of awareness among consumers about their legal and civic rights,
due to a number of complex and inter-related factors, including a historically unresponsive state, a regularly
exploitative private sector and the failure of democratic institutions in addressing consumers day-to-day and
policy related problems.
The state has in many cases not protected their right to a healthy life, as guaranteed by Article 9 of the
Constitution or various United Nations declarations, including for Consumer Protection, 1985. Likewise, the
private sector has proved unresponsive to complaints or to the health concerns of consumers, particularly
disadvantaged consumers, making full use of the lack of literacy and awareness in the country. This is further
complicated by a weak regulatory structure in the country, plagued by poor implementation of social laws even
when they are drafted. In addition, most of the civic sector also does not advocate for consumer rights.
As a consequence, there is little to no demand from citizen-consumers for protection of their rights, and they
have had little stake in the systems and mechanisms introduced by the state, choosing by and large not to occupy
the opportunities legally offered. For example, at one level there are barely adequate statutes to facilitate
redress of consumers complaints about products and services (particularly related to government provision of basic
services such as water and health) in a transparent, just and timely manner. At another level, the historically
weak response to the statutes that exist have left consumers cynical, and they mostly do not appropriately lodge
and follow up their complaints, accepting losses and suffering violation of their rights. As above, this affects
already disadvantaged consumers the most.
A growing concern for consumers, particularly in the context of a liberalizing economy, is the information
inequity in the market. The overwhelming bulk of consumers simply do not have access to independent information
about: products and services, government’s performance on protection of their rights, how their rights are being
violated by public and private sectors, and what they themselves are already legally empowered to do to protect
their rights.
This is made clear in specific sectors, for example in pharmaceuticals, where the wide spread availability of
substandard, counterfeit and spurious drugs does not deter consumer-patients from making the drugs industry one
of the strongest performers in the Pakistani economy. Four key issues are outstanding in this sector that is a
prime determinant of the modern health care system:
-
Pharmaceuticals are not affordable to a vast majority of people. Some estimates put the number of people who
have no access as half of the population while others count even greater numbers. Much of the population cannot
even afford to approach this health care system in the first place and thus pharmaceuticals remain out of their
lives, while another large section of patients who consult the modern health care system cannot afford to pay
for what is prescribed
-
Poor consumers are further disadvantaged since the treatments for the diseases of the poor majority remain
unavailable in the market while the rich minority is overwhelmed by treatment options for their ailments,
real or perceived. Time-tested treatments fall out of favor of companies as soon as they outlive their patent
periods and the subsequent competition forces down their prices. Making available the time-tested and much-needed
cheap medicines, Essential Drugs, is a formidable challenge for economies developing under neo-liberal paradigm.
-
Corporations are throwing products in global market at a great speed. They have secured the right to enter
national markets through global financial institutions and trade agreements. But the nation states are not
capable of checking all corporate moves and protecting the interests of their population. This is why
pharmaceutical products banned in countries of origin are available in other countries like Pakistan. Products
can be available in different countries for different indications and uses as well. Guarding people against the
dangers of unsafe drugs is another challenge.
-
Pakistan has one of the largest number of registered drugs, and among the absolute highest rates in the world
for unnecessary prescriptions of antibiotics, injections and numbers of medicines per prescription. Irrational
use of safe and essential drugs can make them harmful and even dangerous products. It not only burdens health
budgets, it also causes drug resistance, which is responsible for increasing mortality caused by TB, malaria and
other such diseases. Irrationality can be ignorance but it can also be a deliberate attempt to get quick and
handsome returns on a prescribers investment. The complicity between many medical professionals and most of the
industry, is complicated further by the weak, and occasionally dishonest, role of the regulator, primarily the
federal Ministry of Health. Responsible health service systems, ethical marketing practices and aware consumers
are the basic ingredients of rational use of pharmaceuticals.
Similarly, breastfeeding, now widely recognized as a child’s license to a healthy life, also impinges on the
lucrative market of child nutrition, for which breastfeeding practice is the biggest hurdle in realization of
virtually endless profits. Breastfeeding and commoditized nutrients are antithetical: one can thrive largely at
the cost of the other. It is thus no surprise that infant formula corporations regularly undermine breastfeeding
practices to gain ground for their products, that have proven to be inferior to breastmilk and to lead to deaths.
The practice of hooking babies and mothers to these products began a few decades ago, but had to be abandoned
under pressure from international campaigners.
Corporate pressures are now exerted in more subtle ways to undermine mothers confidence in their ability to feed
their children, that is through unethical advertising and the use of medical professionals as promoters of their
products. The key challenge, again, is one of checking these practices, recognized as corrupt by international
codes as well as national legislation. However, the states role in regulation has been weak in the extreme, and
there is virtually no implementation of the law or the stricter international code in hospitals and birthing
clinics and spaces.
These problems are repeated in tobacco products, which are not just another consumable.Tobacco is the only
product that is poisonous under any use and that is yet legally available throughout the country, and which
manufacturers are allowed to promote almost freely. The scientific debate over health hazards of tobacco is
long concluded. Its costs to health systems, national budgets and family incomes in different countries may vary
in numbers but these differences are insignificant as they all have the same conclusion that tobacco use must be
up-rooted. However, tobacco use has developed a strong base in Pakistan and its use is growing every day in the
country.
Once again, weak regulation is not only permitting the law to be freely violated, but has also failed to further
curb advertising at a time when tobacco ads and cigarettes are being banned the world over.
In all three sectors, the problems related to unethical marketing of products, exploiting unaware and
disadvantaged consumers, and weak regulation by the State. However, these are all health-related instances
in which the private sector already has a well-established role. In many other matters that directly affect
peoples health, the State is directly involved in provision as well as regulation, and the issues are of a
slightly different nature. For example, there are three main challenges faced by the people of our country
regarding drinking water.
First, access to drinking water is not practically recognized as a basic human right; second, the water that
does remain is fast being polluted and causing an enormous health burden, particularly for already disadvantaged
consumers who continue to die from gastroenteritis; third, no system is in place for safe, efficient and equitable
distribution of this vital resource. These problems are aggravated, rather than eased, by the involvement of the
State in provision, as water has long been a community matter, being handled locally.
Central management has raised undue concerns such as poor quality, high cost, inequitably distribution, absence
of complaint redress, and increasingly scarcity. The new wave of economic reforms over the last twenty-five
years or so has introduced corporations in this arena, occupying the space vacated by the state under processes
of privatization. Their unimaginative cookie-cutter approach – commoditization – is not working in drinking
water, which must be ensured for the very lives of people.
7. Policy challenges facing consumers in Pakistan
These sectoral concerns highlight the generic, policy challenges faced by consumers, particularly that affect
their health.
The role of corporations, especially their lack of responsiveness and ethical behavior coupled with the inability
of the state to check their functioning in Pakistan, is problematic. The fundamental issue is one of the
accountability of most corporations that are primarily in place to make profits, even at the cost of consumer
health. The ways in which corporations are exercising their role is now more complex than ever, not only through
directly unethical and in some cases illegal marketing but also through indirectly promoting a consumer culture
that values purchases more than health.
This culture is instilled in consumers from school onwards, and the role of the media itself commercialized in
this regard also goes largely unchecked. The corporatization of the mind has begun in earnest in Pakistan and
consumers, particularly lower middle class consumers, are increasingly under threat. While calls for corporate
social responsibility abound, these have resulted in little more than “greenwash” in the country; there are no
independent organizations holding corporations accountable.
However, while the problem of corporations is at one level fundamentally problematic, this is a global phenomenon
which many international campaigns are targeting in different arenas. The problem is made more intense in Pakistan
due to the poor state of regulation. The double whammy facing consumers in Pakistan, as above, comprises absence
of appropriately motivated legislation and regulation, and poor implementation of laws where they do exist.
The state of implementation of social laws has been much commented upon, and while numerous policy initiatives
have been announced, none has made much difference to the fact that such regulation remains weak while at the
same time there are little to no problems in implementing defense, foreign policy, or macro-finance laws.
For consumer health, this situation is complicated even more because of the intensive role of the State in the
provision of social services, such as drinking water, above, and justice.
This last is the final determinant of consumer welfare, since the justice system is intended to provide an
independent recourse to consumers. When court procedures are length and costly, and justice is neither accessible
nor expected, as in most cases across the country, consumers are left to their own, weak, devices. In sum, the
State problems amount to an issue of social justice.
This issue of social justice is one of democracy, in particular the absence of democratic norms in the country.
From a direct consumer perspective, social justice is neither ensured nor evident in the policy processes of the
country. Meaningful citizen participation in policy processes is negligible, policy processes (including
implementation) are opaque, and policy makers largely unaccountable. In effect, consumers have little to no forums
for raising an effective voice in matters determining their lives. They have, thus, no demand as above.
The matter of democracy is directly related to consumer rights. While Pakistan is a signatory to the UN Guidelines
for Consumer Protection, 1985 (Annex 1), it has yet to submit any report on its compliance with the Guidelines,
or to be held accountable. A basic tenet of the Guidelines is that consumer rights are just that: rights, not
privileges. And, therefore, the State has a basic obligation to ensure that those rights beginning with the right
to satisfaction of basic needs, and moving through the right to redress. A consumer, most importantly, is not just
a customer in the marketplace, but a citizen who uses goods and services not directly paid for in the marketplace.
While the Guidelines, and subsequent development of a framework by the umbrella body Consumers International,
require the State to ensure these rights, they also recognize that it is unrealistic to expect the State to
intervene in every case. Even a strong judicial system can act better as a deterrent that actual litigation in
every matter, which would cause its own problem. In the final analysis, as understood by advocates of functional
democracy, it is the demand raised by citizens themselves, in this case as consumers, that determines the efficacy
of systems of protection. And for this, consumers need to be critically informed. Doubtless low literacy levels
hamper mass awareness to an extent, but this barrier is neither insurmountable (given developments in electronic
media) nor a deterrent to the awareness of the literate sections of the population. However, consumers in
Pakistan remain unaware both of their rights, and of the increasingly insidious ways in which those rights are
being violated.
These issues reflect a changed landscape since TheNetwork last strategized its future in 1999: the government of
General Musharraf, the events of 9/11 and their aftermath, a vastly enhanced recognition of NGOs, a further
multiplication of NGOs and donor funds, three new civil society organizations also advocating for consumer rights,
growing levels of “policy advocacy”, and recognition of the role of NGOs “on the table” with government but
repression of a “hard” advocacy role. TheNetwork has been a part of these trends, and derives its re-strategization
from its examination of the context.
|
|
|
|