On Feb. 18 governments and campaigners from around the world will meet in New Zealand to discuss a treaty banning cluster bombs. Activists and survivors at the gathering hope it will result in a ban on cluster munitions, which they say have a devastating effect on civilians.

"(Cluster bombs are) failing on a massive scale," according to the online news website of Voice of America.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed and maimed by cluster bombs during the past 40 years, and they kill many more people after a war than during it, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Voice of America.

"Large numbers of people are being killed year after year, decade after decade from the use of a weapon, which is inaccurate, unreliable and used in massive numbers," Peter Herby, head of ICRC's arms unit, said.

When dropped, each bomb disperses from 10 to several hundred bomblets randomly over a wide area. This makes them very hard to target, and many lie undetonated on the ground for years, often disturbed by civilians after the conflict has ended.

Cluster munitions have been used in conflicts including Afghanistan, Vietnam, the Balkans, and in the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon.

Rasha Zayoun was 17 years old when an Israeli cluster bomblet exploded in her home in southern Lebanon, the Washington Post writes. Her left foot had to be amputated, and her remaining foot is so speckled with shrapnel and stiff from lack of use that, confined to a wheelchair, she's in almost constant pain.

She found the unexploded bomblet in a bag of wild thyme her father brought home. "I thought it was a toy", she said.

U.N. officials estimate that the Israeli military dropped between 1.2 and 4 million cluster bomblets on southern Lebanon in the summer of 2006, according to the Washington Post.

There are a lot of stories like Rasha's around.

Twenty-one-year-old Umarbek Pulodov from Tajikistan lost an eye when cluster bombs were dropped on his village in 1992. He told the New York Times he considered himself lucky - his older brother and uncle were killed.

"My message is simple - ban cluster bombs, clear them and help survivors and their families," Pulodov said.

And Inter Press Service (IPS) tells the story of Branislav Kapetanovic, a former member of the Serbian army who lost both his arms and legs in an accident in 2000 while he was trying to clear cluster bombs dropped by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) the previous year. His hearing was also damaged, and he was blinded for several months.

"These weapons are monstrous, and they cannot be controlled," he said to the IPS. "A total ban is the only way to go. No exceptions, no excuses."

This week's meeting is part of the so-called Oslo Process, a union of governments and humanitarian organisations such as the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC), a network of about some 250 NGOs working in 70 countries. They are aiming for an international accord banning these weapons by the end of 2008.

Though nearly 100 countries support the Oslo Process, some governments like the United States aren't supportive of a total ban. Others like France, Germany and Italy are trying to water down the treaty, the CMC has said to Reuters.

The U.S. supports the use of cluster bombs if used and defused properly, and says efforts should focus on ensuring countries know how to use the weapons in a way that is in full accordance with international humanitarian law, according to the BBC.

The ICRC's Herby told Voice of America: "The bottom line is that there is a potential for an extremely severe humanitarian problem caused by the increased possession, proliferation and use of these weapons by more and more actors."

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