KINGSTON, Jamaica — Today is World Consumer Rights Day and the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC) will be celebrating under the 2017 theme ‘Empowering Consumers in The Digital Age’ at the agency’s head office located at 34 Trafalgar Rd, Kingston.

Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Karl Samuda, will deliver the day’s message, while the agency has been hosting a week of activities which began on Sunday and will end on Friday, to highlight how consumers can protect themselves in an increasingly globalised and digitised world.

World Consumer Rights Day was established on March 15, 1983 to promote the basic rights of consumers worldwide.

On this day each year, the global consumer movement unites around a common theme geared towards promoting the basic rights of all consumers. The initiatives which are launched on this day also seek to highlight market abuses and social injustices which undermine these rights.

CAC, which is the lead consumer agency in the Caribbean, said it will focus on empowering the Jamaican consumer. This is within the context that consumers have benefitted from the increased access, choice and convenience as it relates to digital technology.

In collaboration with Consumers International, the CAC said it aims to make access to reliable, affordable and safe communication networks a reality for consumers.

This, the CAC added, is done through campaigning for fairer laws and practices and holding industry players to account for their treatment of consumer.

The Government organisation said it will also seek to empower Consumers International as activists for consumer rights online for a #BetterDigitalWorld.