Romania: Massive Animal Cruelty at Horse Markets
PETA's motto is: Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way. The organisation opposes speciesism — a worldview that classifies humans as superior to all other living beings.
Whipped, beaten, and harassed: Almost every weekend, horses are subjected to cruel treatment at markets across Romania. Together with local animal welfare activists, PETA managed to document the conditions at horse markets in Berevoieşti and Mihăeşti.
Whip Strikes for Peak Performance
Traders hitch these sensitive flight animals to long tree trunks, boulders, or carriages with blocked wheels, and force them under whip strikes to perform at their peak in order to sell them at a profit.
Some horses collapse, and many of them are severely injured. A local animal welfare association has already filed a criminal complaint. PETA is now calling on the national police authority and the national veterinary authority through a petition to ban the horse markets.
«It is a scandal that is taking place throughout the entire country. At dozens of horse markets in Romania, animal welfare laws are being violated in a cruel manner», says Dr. Carmen Arsene, President of the FNPA, the association for the protection of animals in Romania. «Once the horses are hitched to the carriages or wooden logs, they are whipped until they collapse or leave the field with bleeding wounds.Once the horses are hitched to the carriages or wooden logs, they are whipped until they collapse or leave the field with bleeding wounds.»
Authorities Must Intervene
Jana Hoger, policy officer at PETA, adds: «Romania is undergoing a cultural transformation, but unfortunately animal cruelty is still the order of the day. The mistreatment of animals can only stop if the state intervenes and enforces existing laws. With our petition, we are therefore urgently calling on the authorities to ban the horse markets.»
The markets in Berevoieşti and Mihăeşti, two of the largest horse markets in the country, are emblematic of hundreds of horse and animal markets across the country where animals are physically and psychologically traumatized and sold. A large proportion of these markets are illegal and are either not monitored by authorities at all or only inadequately so, and the animal cruelty goes unpunished accordingly.
