The aim of the campaign is to improve lung health in children, and to provide care and support for children suffering from lung disease, and their families.

The Children's Charter will be accompanied by a petition to be presented to the Government in early 2011. Signatures from supporters of the charter will be collected until December 2010. If you would like to support the campaign, please click here to find out more.

In this, its 25th anniversary year, the BLF has introduced a new theme: 'Lungs are for life', to try and encourage a new generation to think about lung health.

The Charter includes 12 points which promote children's lung health; the first is the focus of the campaign this week: 'Children should be able to enjoy a smoke-free environment inside and outside the home'.

Whilst legislation, which came into force in England on 1 July 2007 prevents smoking in enclosed public places and work vehicles, may have encouraged some to stop smoking, many still do. And now that they have been forced to smoke outside in, more often than not, inclement weather with a bus-shelter-type affair as their only protection, it could be argued that many have decided to smoke in the privacy of their own home or in a private vehicle where the legislation can't touch them with it's penalties.

Frequently there will be children in the home or car and it does not seem right that they should be the victim of someone else's addiction or indulgence. Currently, there is no recompense for these children who may go on to develop lung disease in adulthood.

Similarly, there have been cases recently where there has been insufficient protection for children, as, being children, they may try to play in a local disused building or possibly on the site of an old factory for example.

Whilst measures should be taken to prevent them from doing so, inevitably they find ways in. What they will often be too young to appreciate as that these sites may well contain dangerous asbestos-based materials as part of the construction of the building, which, when dislodged or broken can release potentially lethal fibres into the air, ready for them to be inhaled. These fibres can cause aggressive lung-related illnesses to develop such as asbestosis, lung cancer, pleural thickening and mesothelioma.

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