“Examine tobacco retailers around primary and secondary schools and assess the clientele with regard to sale to and by minors, the case of Nyarugenge district”.

Abstract

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) members are encouraged to implement measures beyond those required by its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, nothing in this instrument should prevent a party from imposing more strict and consistent requirements with their provisions and in accordance with international laws. Unfortunately, parties’ performance is low and the available information in that sector of public health is limited, particularly in the low and middle-income part of the World(1). Therefore, Rwanda being among low-income countries located in East African region has also a very weak tobacco monitoring system with limited and not updated statistics in this sector(2). Consequently, the currently only available data are from Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) 2008, Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) 2010, Rwanda WHO STEPS Survey 2012/2013 (Rwanda NCDs risk factors survey). And they are not enough informative in terms of surveillance and efficient monitoring of significant trends in tobacco consumption in the country as advised by WHO. In this regard, the current research entitled:” Examine tobacco retailers around primary and secondary schools and assess the clientele with regard to sale to and by minors, in Nyarugenge district” was conducted with the main objective of investigating retailers of tobacco products in the areas around primary and secondary schools and evaluate their clientele with regards to sale to and by minor. This study was a descriptive cross-sectional design where 53 schools were randomly selected and, two-stage sampling method was used to select the enumeration areas (Schools), where eligible participants were Tobacco retailers around each selected school and were voluntary recruited. Thus, each tobacco retailer outlet or shop located in a distance less than one kilometer was a candidate for questionnaire interview in this study. As a result, this research has shown that in Nyarugenge district tobacco retailers in the school surroundings have weak compliance and low level of knowledge on the existing Rwandan tobacco control law. Therefore, tobacco retailers and their clientele of tobacco and tobacco products include minor people. Hence, this is against the current Rwandan tobacco control law which protects under 18 years old people from contact with tobacco and tobacco products(3). iii The results of this study are important by delivering reliable data and scientific evidence for policy- makers, law enforcers, decision makers, as well as encourage other researchers to conduct more studies in this field. This will provide evidence for tobacco control policies implementation, enforcement, and legislation in Rwanda, African governments, and Worldwide at large.