WCRD 2012

WORLD CONSUMER RIGHTS  DAY 2012

The theme for World Consumer Rights Day (WCRD) 2012 is Our money, our rights: campaigning for real choice in financial services

The aim of WRCD is to celebrate solidarity within the international consumer rights movement. 

History of the WCRD

On 15 March 1963, President John F Kennedy gave an address to the US congress in which he formally addressed the issue of consumer rights. He was the first world leader to do so, and the consumer movement now marks 15 March every year as a means of raising global awareness about consumer rights.

It marks the date in 1962 President John F Kennedy first outlined the definition of  Consumer Rights. 

'Consumers by definition, include us all,' Kennedy said in his Congressional Statement, 'They are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision. Yet they are the only important group... whose views are often not heard.'

The WCRD was first celebrated in 1983 and became an important annual occasion for mobilizing citizen action and solidarity within the international consumer movement. The day is an opportunity for promoting the basic rights of all consumers, demanding that those rights are respected and protected and protesting about the market abuses and social injustices which undermine them.