Kuwait is the major destination for Australian sheep in the Middle East. Some 22 million Australian sheep have been exported to Kuwait over the past 20 years.In early 2004 and again in 2006 Animals Australia investigators visited Kuwait and brought the brutal treatment of sheep and cattle in Kuwait at the Shuwaikh abattoir and the Al Rai livestock market to the attention of the Australian Federal government and live export industry.
Animals Australia has implored both the Australian government and Meat & Livestock Australia to at the very least reduce the risks posed to exported Australian animals by ensuring that they were not onsold to individual buyers an outcome that they could legitimately achieve through requirements in export permits and exporter/importer agreements. Neither the Australian government nor the live export industry was willing to take this obvious measure to reduce suffering.
Last month Animals Australia's Lyn White returned to Kuwait for the Festival of Sacrifice and visited once again the Kuwaiti livestock market and abattoir that had presented such grave animal welfare concerns in the past.
"The streets of the Al Rai market on the morning of the Eid turned into a mass slaughter area for animals. Australian sheep were being purchased, bound with wire and shoved into car boots whilst others were being dragged terrified on their stomachs towards filthy slaughter areas on the side of roads where they waited amongst the dead and dying to have their throats cut.
"The treatment of two young dairy bulls was so horrendous that it was almost soul destroying to witness. One was killed on the side of the road, and the other in a carpentry workshop. Both were brutally forced to the ground where they struggled, terrified as they were trussed with rope over a period of many minutes until tightly bound, they had their throats cut by inexperienced slaughterers resulting in long, painful deaths.
For full footage please refer http://www.animalsaustralia.org/investigations/live-export-investigation-2010.php#photos
"Whilst the majority of Australian animals will be slaughtered in the Middle East whilst fully conscious all year around and animals are available to be sold to individual buyers each day the Australian Government and Meat & Livestock Australia know so clearly that animals are enmass brutally treated during the Festival of Sacrifice yet they are still willing to send hundreds of thousands of animals to this Festival each year."
Footage obtained by Animals Australia investigators in Bahrain in 2007 forced the Bahraini government to prohibit the transpiration of Australian animals in boots from the Bahrain feedlot for fear of losing their supply of animals.
Animals Australia's investigations in the Middle East have clearly revealed that animals will only be protected from cruelty when legislation is passed to prevent cruel treatment and practices. Current treatment is even contrary to Islamic teachings, yet widespread abuse still routinely occurs. Far from influencing change, Australia's live export industry's willingness to supply animals is contributing to and condoning animal cruelty.
A decision by Australia to not provide animals on animal welfare grounds will resonate through the region and assist the calls from the many caring Muslims throughout the Middle East for animal cruelty legislation to be passed
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