Electric discharges, blows of the head, twisted queues. This is yet another horror documented by Animal Equality in slaughterhouses of cows and pigs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, a country from which the European Union imports most of the fresh beef from Mercosur.
The video investigation, conducted between November and December 2024 in the slaughterhouses Vidal Sa and Santa Giulia, shows prohibited practices and violations of the laws on animal welfare. And, in the absence of official inspections, the horror: the hidden cameras have captured scenes that can hardly leave indifferent.
Among the strongest images, those that show cows hit repeatedly with clubs, a technique explicitly prohibited by an Argentine law. In one case, an animal was hit four times while it was already immobilized for slaughter. Other cattle, stunned simultaneously, were injured with each other, in open violation of all the rules that provide for the treatment of only one animal at a time.
Cruelty does not even spare pigs: the use of pungulators, which should be limited to exceptional cases, has been taken up by investigators as a widespread practice. Not only that: a pig underwent electric shock in the genital area, a gesture not only forbidden, but an indication of a systematic violence made possible by the total absence of controls.
We have presented a formal complaint to the Argentine national service for health and agri -food quality, which is analyzing the evidence collected – explains Matteo Cupi, executive director of Animal Equality Italy. Animals exploited for human consumption are sentient beings and deserve respect, not suffering and cruelty.
But that’s not all: that meat, the result of inhuman practices, also arrives in Europe. According to Eurostat data, Argentina is in fact the first fresh bovine exporter to the EU among the Mercosur countries (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay), with a 53%share. Between 2020 and 2024, it was also the second exporting country in terms of total tons, immediately after Brazil.
And with the EU-Vercosur Treaty under discussion, the situation risks worsening. A report published by Animal Equality together with Eurogroup for Animals denounces how the expected increase in exports will only multiply suffering, aggravated by the absence of unified legislation on animal welfare in the Mercosur countries.
A picture that raises animal Equality Italy urgent equality: is it really worth importing low -cost meat if the price to pay is the systematic suffering of millions of animals?
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