Animal advocates, legal specialists and MPs share a common goal: a desire to use the law to make the world more just in some way.
In theory, laws should provide boundaries, security, consequences for those who disobey, and justice for those affected. Right now, however, this theory is not translating into reality.
Animal Equality has investigated nearly 50 farms and slaughterhouses across the UK, uncovering disturbing findings along the way. We’ve obtained evidence of pigs being jabbed with pitchforks, newborn calves being slapped and force-fed, and sheep getting caught in slaughterhouse equipment.
Over the past decade in which we’ve been carrying out this work, two clear patterns have emerged. Firstly, an endemic of non-compliance within these facilities. Secondly, a reluctance among authorities to enforce the law.
Some of these cases led to successful prosecutions, likely in large part because of the far-reaching media coverage, and certainly thanks to the public, who consistently channel their shock and disgust to call on regulatory bodies to take action. However, the majority resulted in no meaningful action at all.
That’s why we joined forces with The Animal Law Foundation, a recently launched charity whose team of lawyers have been aware of the enforcement problem for some time, having spotted a similar trend transpire amongst the animal groups they represent.
Along with the evidence from the undercover investigations, Animal Equality and The Animal Law Foundation set out to use data to bolster what we’ve known all along: that there’s an enforcement problem. In a first-of-its-kind report released and presented in parliament in November, we unveiled the sheer extent of this issue:
● Fewer than 3% of UK farms are inspected on average, annually
● Fewer than 1% of complaints lead to prosecutions, on average
● There is just one inspector in place for every 205 farms
● Just half of initial complaints to a regulatory body lead to a formal inspection.
We also analysed 65 covert investigations and found nearly three-quarters resulted in no subsequent formal enforcement action. These figures should alarm and outrage any consumer.
I, for one, refuse to spend my life fighting for new laws to be put in place if they mean little in reality.
With over 180 taxpayer-funded bodies responsible for overseeing and implementing animal protection laws, bystander behaviour is rife, and this game of ping pong in which no one is accountable means justice is not being served when laws are being flouted.
Accountability is the foundation of good governance – it’s the foundation of a democratic society. Yet for too long there’s been an overreliance on accreditation schemes to carry out these checks and balances in farming facilities. We would never allow a headteacher to inspect their own school – if we did, they’d all be marked as ‘extraordinary’. Why should animal farming be any different?
The good news is that, now we’ve unveiled this problem so starkly, we have an opportunity to work with regulatory bodies to put an end to the widespread unlawfulness taking place so brazenly on our doorsteps. And, as consumers, we have the power to put an immediate stop to farmed animal suffering by boycotting these products and leaving animals off of our plates.
Just because farmed animals are hidden away behind closed doors doesn’t make their suffering any less real. We cannot continue to turn our backs on the animals trapped within these cruel industries.
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