Just like in the U.S., farmed animals in Mexico have few to no legal protections. But thanks to Mexican legislators, this could soon change.
Mexico’s senate recently approved a “point of agreement” that seeks to encourage the country’s agricultural ministry to overhaul its animal welfare regulations and address the terrible conditions animals suffer in Mexican slaughterhouses.
After conversations with Mercy For Animals, Senator Indira Rosales San Román of Veracruz presented the point of agreement to legislators, who unanimously approved it. The proposal urges the Secretariat of Agriculture and Rural Development (SADER) to improve animal welfare standards and enforce compliance with established laws. Specifically, the agreement formally urges SADER to do the following:
- Modify regulations for animal transport to meet international animal welfare standards
- Regulate farming processes in accordance with international animal welfare standards
- Verify and inspect all slaughterhouses in the country to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations, and apply legal sanctions to noncompliant facilities
- Permanently close any slaughterhouse operating informally (clandestine slaughterhouses)
As numerous Mercy For Animals undercover investigations have revealed, animals used for food suffer unimaginable cruelties, including overcrowding and intensive confinement, mutilations without painkillers, and ruthless slaughter.
In 2017 a groundbreaking Mercy For Animals investigation into several slaughterhouses throughout Mexico exposed animals shocked with electric prongs in their faces and eyes, beaten over the head with sledgehammers, and dragged to the kill floor.
This point of agreement is a major step forward in addressing the brutality and cruelty that animals are subjected to during transport and at factory farms and slaughterhouses in Mexico, but there’s more to be done.
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