Friends this post is overdue. Mom has been reading and reading because she wanted to make sure this was accurate. About two weeks ago she asked you to participate in a survey regarding the exportation of Egyptian stray dogs to South Korea. She’s putting this into 3 parts in order to keep it condensed and not an overwhelming read.
We focus on Asia. Mom has spent nearly three years invested in her Asian animal welfare education however, during this she has uncovered the brutality against animals, specifically dogs in African countries such Nigeria and Togo – including a festival that mimics Yulin in China. This said, it’s important to understand that this is a completely different culture from Asia and impossible to fight effectively, concurrently. Egyptians and the Muslim faith deter them from consuming dog meat, however, this does not deter them from gross neglect and severe animal abuse with lacking legislation in place to prevent or punish against animal cruelty. In fact, historically in older civilizations, dogs and cats were considered sacred! The Quran actually favors animals and prohibits anything considered inhumane. This is yet another head-scratcher considering the current state. And are you ready for this? It is estimated that there are 22 million stray dogs nationwide in Egypt. The entire country of Egypt has a population of 100 million so this represents 22% of the human population. This number is staggering. The public have resorted to shooting, poisoning and drowning stray dogs and cats with no repercussions. The government at one point offered the equivalent of $5.50 to every person who captured and turned in 5 dogs to the veterinary authority to be killed. In November of 2013 a proposed law was introduced to protect against animal cruelty and it actually passed. Unfortunately while it states it will guarantee the humane treatment of animals, there are no penalties if it is violated and it is not enforced. Additional legislation introduced after this to protect animals as sentient beings has, not surprisingly, been refused.
So we have to ask ourselves, in this type of climate, is it really a surprise that the concept of exporting dogs to another country to not only solve their dog and cat overpopulation problem but also of course, to boost the economy of the country? There is of course no surprise that this is an idea that actually is only seen as in humane by the animal welfare groups in place there. We will outline the proposal to export dogs in our next post. It’s important to understand this background in order to understand how this situation developed. What always remains true though is that CRUELTY IS NOT CULTURE!! We must fight and use our voices for the voiceless!!
