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UK bans live animals export

Cattle, goats, pigs and horses would be spared from the painful travel to overseas slaughterhouse.

Agence France-Presse · May 18, 2024, 12:20 AM

The law bans the export of cattle and other livestock for the purposes of slaughter — Daniel LEAL / AFP

Animal rights activists are cheering for millions of farmed animals after Britain’s parliament passed on Tuesday a law banning livestock exports to spare cattle, goats, pigs and horses from tortorous transport to slaughterhouses abroad.

The passage of the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Bill aims to end the overcrowding, exhaustion, dehydration and stress suffered by live animals exported overseas.

described it as “an extraordinary achievement” that activists had campaigned on for 50 years.

“Back in the 90s we had more than a million animals going out from the UK. It’s an abhorrent trade. The suffering is intense and it goes on for a long time,” said Emma Slawinski, director of policy, prevention and campaigns at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“Some of those journeys were measured in days, not in hours, and they’re never going to happen again.”

Activists have been calling for the ban for decades.