New investigation shows the sad reality for cows inside Italian slaughterhouses

Animal Equality recently released new footage shot inside a cow slaughterhouse in Lombardy, Italy. The images obtained show what happens during slaughter, a procedure often not performed in compliance with regulations, in particular, those relating to stunning and mistreatments of the animals. Warning: disturbing content. Viewer discretion is advised. In the video you can see workers mistreating cows by pushing and pulling them, violently hitting them on the head, inadequately stunning and slaughtering while still conscious, and therefore left to agonize in pain for several minutes until they finally pass. Since the beginning of 2018, Animal Equality has released several videos showing what happens inside Italian slaughterhouses and in a very short time has gained the support of over 120 thousand people asking for a definitive legal reform to help protect animals. This is why a petition addressed to Parliament was launched to obtain, among the various requests, the installation of CCTV cameras in slaughterhouses and better accountability of stunning laws without exemptions and exceptions. “Our videos and investigations show that it is necessary to introduce specific rules to minimize the suffering of all those animals that are condemned to slaughter every year in our country,” says Matteo Cupi, Executive Director of Animal Equality Italy. “Many European countries have already taken actions in this direction, canceling the derogations for religious slaughter, such as Austria and Denmark, or by introducing CCTV cameras, as in Great Britain and also in France. Italian politicians have a duty to enforce the rules and to improve the legislative framework that regulates the slaughter, which takes place behind closed doors, and at the moment, it is not really known if the Italian laws are respected. Without the investigations and the work of the organizations, there would be no way to know the truth and consumers would remain completely unaware of all this. Obviously, consumers can always choose to help animals by reducing or avoiding meat consumption, but this is a matter of transparency, justice, and correctness of institutions, and it is time that Italian politicians also take responsibility for these transversal requests from hundreds of thousands of citizens,” concludes Cupi.