PETA has been campaigning against Indian leather products abroad to end cruelty to cattle in India.
DUBAI: The world's largest animal rights organisation has said it will continue the campaign abroad to boycott Indian leather goods until the government and leather manufacturers take steps to end unnecessary cruelty to animals being taken for slaughter.
Jason Baker, Director, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who has lived in India for several years, told DNA that live animal transport in India is amongst the cruelest in the world and needed to be reformed not only for the sake of animals but to ensure better hygienic meat.
PETA recently mounted a campaign in UAE to end live transportation of sheep from Australia. Andrew Butler, another activist recalled that 24,000 sheep died during the journey to the Gulf in 2004 alone unable to withstand the gruelling overcrowded trip amid urine and faeces. Baker said the upside in the Indian story is only that the trip is shorter, but the animals for slaughter taken from India to the Gulf suffer the same torture which could be easily avoided.
Cattle are tormented most within India, he said. "The animals are tied together with ropes through their noses and beaten mercilessly in forced death marches to slaughter within the country. Handlers force them along by snapping their tails at each joint and rubbing tobacco, chillies and salt into their eyes. Their lives are as miserable as those sent on ships to the Middle East," he said.
Baker said PETA is pushing the Bureau of Indian Standards to at least make guidelines for live animal export from India compliant with the international OIE (world organisation for animal health) standards of which India is a member. Indian laws and BIS codes hardly offer any protection to animals being shipped live.
He said it was the responsibility of meat and leather industries in India that profit from the deaths of animals to at the very least ensure that basic animal protection laws are followed. Despite our campaign, the Indian Council for Leather Exports (ICLE) has only taken on one project in Coimbatore to help reduce cruelty to animals." "Because of the leather industry's inaction, PETA was campaigning to encourage international buyers to boycott leather from India….PETA has filed a case with the Supreme Court seeking implementation of India's animal protection laws," he said.
