Ban on Child Abuse by Recreational Hunters
Long-term research has shown that children can be severely damaged by witnessing violent animal abuse, such as during hunting or bullfighting.
The effects include progressive erosion of empathy and normalization of violence, which has been proven to develop into violence against humans and property. According to the law of cause and effect, violence always leads to counter-violence!
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has recognized these effects and issued recommendations that children should not be exposed to violent animal abuse.
The recognition that we protect children by protecting animals is groundbreaking.
These recommendations to various countries implicitly assume that children are affected by all forms of violent animal abuse because they have an empathetic relationship with another sentient being, regardless of species.
In May 2021, the world's most important institution for child protection, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, published a recommendation to the Tunisian government. It concerned the impact that shooting animals can have on a child. In the document, the Committee called for the "elimination of societal violence against animals". This was followed by a university study showing that empathy in children who witness violence against animals can partially regress, and children may eventually view violence as normal.
The Committee is fundamentally concerned about children who must witness violence against animals – affecting different animal species. It is therefore not about a particular animal species, but about the acts themselves. Research has repeatedly shown that children possess compassion for all types of animals. This means that children can be gravely harmed by being made to witness violence being inflicted on any living being – regardless of which one.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the foundation for all of UNICEF's work. It is the most comprehensive declaration of children's rights ever created and the most ratified international human rights treaty in history.
Verband Jagd Schweiz
Hunting is a distinctly diffuse parallel world dominated by cult-like ideologies that have established themselves in our society. Unfortunately, it has become commonplace for children to receive unnatural brainwashing from hobby hunters of Verband Jagd Schweiz in the context of nature experiences. Animal-loving children are fed weapons, ammunition and killing. Through children's innocent love for animals, they attempt to raise them to kill. They are allowed to shoot at animal taxidermies with crossbows, bow and arrow or firearms, or even dispatch wild animals to eternal hunting grounds just like that. In small knowledge tests for animal or track identification, knives beckon as gifts. The joy of killing, violence and proper handling of weapons for a trophy are thus playfully instilled in the next generation.
In Switzerland, there is no association whose members are demonstrably involved year after year in four-digit numbers of legal violations such as hunting law offenses, poaching, arms smuggling, environmental crimes, animal welfare violations, traffic offenses, corruption and many other criminal activities, like Verband Jagd Schweiz.
Hobby hunters have no pedagogical calling, yet they proselytize all the way into elementary schools. The malformed vision of hobby hunters regarding nature has nothing to do with biology, ecology or protection of wild animals – quite the opposite! Hobby hunters kill out of passion. Therefore neutrality cannot be given.
Members of Verband Jagd Schweiz have relationships with representatives of power in general. Furthermore, they use violence or other means suitable for intimidation (fear-mongering, propaganda lies, hunter's tales, etc.) to influence politics, media, public administration, justice or economy. Practically everything that is cruel, unnecessary and heartless is promoted by Verband Jagd Schweiz. Verband Jagd Schweiz primarily cultivates disrespect and a culture of violence – exactly the opposite of what a cultured person in our society should strive for.
There are no associations with legal status in Switzerland whose members are so deeply rooted in criminality as with Verband Jagd Schweiz.
IG Wild beim Wild calls upon child protection organizations and politics to heed the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and support programs that bring about an end to violence against animals.
We demand that we envision a world in which humanity lives in harmony with nature and in which wild animals and other living species are respected.