Exposé: Donkeys Beaten, Throats Slit for Chinese ‘Medicine’ Gelatine Myth

For Immediate Release:

22 November 2017

Contact:

Jennifer White +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 222; [email protected]

EXPOSÉ: DONKEYS BEATEN, THROATS SLIT FOR CHINESE ‘MEDICINE’ GELATINE MYTH

PETA Asia Urges Consumers to Reject Ejiao After Eyewitness Footage Reveals Shocking Donkey Abuse

London [AH1] – A never-before-seen PETA Asia video exposé of the Chinese trade in donkeys’ skins, which are boiled down for a traditional “medicine” called ejiao, reveals that thousands of donkeys are being kept in filthy concrete-floored pens, beaten with sticks at the donkey market, and bashed in the head with a sledgehammer at the abattoir. Workers then slit their throats, but some donkeys continue to breathe and move.

The demand for ejiao – which can also be found in certain sweets, snacks, and beauty products – has risen so fast in recent years that donkeys are being imported into China for slaughter and horses, pigs, and cows are being killed for fake ejiao. According to Dr Lee Yuming, a doctor of Chinese medicine: “There is a misconception about ejiao – it is not the most effective medicine to enrich blood in spite of its long history in traditional medicine. Nowadays, there are many other options that are much better at improving one’s health, including modern drugs and herbal medicines.”

“In the ejiao trade, donkeys as young as 5 months old are bashed in the head and die a slow, agonising death, all for an ingredient no one needs,” says PETA Director of International Programmes Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA Asia is calling on kind people everywhere to reject ejiao and encourage their friends and family members to do the same.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat or abuse in any other way” – notes that on these farms, donkeys were observed standing in their own faeces and urine. Some were so malnourished, injured, or ill that they were unable to walk. The only water available to them was dirty and green with algae. Workers also confided to PETA Asia’s eyewitness that they were concerned that environmental inspectors would fine them or shut them down.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk

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