Youths drawn from civil society organisations from Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe converged in Lusaka, Zambia a fortnight ago for the inaugural Sothern African Alcohol Policy Alliance (SAAPA) youth workshop on alcohol advertising advocacy. The workshop, running under the hashtag #AlcoholAdvertisingMustFall is meant to provide capacity to initiate alcohol advertising reforms in their respectative home countries.
Speaking at the workshop, SAAPA board member for Zambia, Jonas Ngulube revealed that there was a new scramble for Africa being undertaken the global alcohol industry where African countries are being divided into alcohol markets at the detriment of the health, development and well being of African nations. Ngulube accused the alcohol industry of engaging in unethical practices in advertising which reinforce perceptions of drinking as positive, glamorous and relatively risk free.
‘The alcohol industry is getting away with murder. They advertise to minors and erect billboards close to schools and churches. Most of the advertising reinforces toxic masculinities in that to be a real man one has to drink. Revered sportspersons and artists are used to entice young people who admire them, while women are portrayed as sexual objects to promote alcoholic beverages,’ said Ngulube
Phillip Chimponda from SAAPA-Zambia took participants at the workshop into a presentation of alcohol and its interconnected risk revealing how alcohol is not an ordinary commodity.
‘ Alcohol companies are making poison attractive through advertising and they do not show the negative effects of harmful consumption like road accidents, domestic violence and risky sexual behaviour leading to the contraction of STIs and HIV/AIDS. There is need to increase taxation to lower harmful consumption,’ he said
The youths were taken through an orientation of SAAPA by Nelson Zakeyu of the Malawi Alcohol Policy Alliance who emphasised the need for speaking with a united voice with regards to alcohol policy implementation in the Southern African region. Zakeyu urged the youths to take unethical alcohol advertising head-on as the future of the region lay in the hands of the youth.
