Push for Exotic-Skins Ban to Head to Prada’s Boardroom

For Immediate Release:
30 May 2017

Contact:
Olivia Jordan +44 (0) 20 7837 6327, ext 229; [email protected]

PUSH FOR EXOTIC-SKINS BAN TO HEAD TO PRADA’S BOARDROOM

As a Shareholder, PETA US Will Ask the Label to Ditch ‘Luxury’ Items Made of Ostriches’ and Reptiles’ Skins

London – Behind every ostrich-, crocodile-, and alligator-skin bag is a short, miserable life of deprivation and a violent death. That’s the message that a PETA US representative will take to Prada’s annual meeting on Wednesday in a call for the company to stop selling bags, watchbands, shoes, and other items made of exotic skins.

When:             Wednesday, 31 May, 12 noon

Where:           Via Antonio Fogazzaro 28, Milan

“No sensitive living being should be crammed into a filthy pit and hacked apart while still alive,” says PETA Director of International Programmes Mimi Bekhechi. “PETA is calling on Prada to take a stand against suffering by ending the use of exotic skins in its collections.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – has released a video exposé of the world’s largest ostrich-slaughter companies, which supply Prada, among others. The footage reveals that young birds are kept on barren dirt feedlots before they’re crowded into lorries, transported to abattoirs, and electrically shocked and their throats are slit. Moments later, their feathers are torn from their still-warm bodies and they’re skinned and dismembered.

PETA exposés of the reptile-skins industry uncovered further cruelty. At a crocodile farm in Vietnam, tens of thousands of crocodiles were kept in small, filthy concrete enclosures, some narrower than the length of their bodies. Alligators at a farm in Texas were kept in fetid water in dank, dark sheds before their necks were hacked open and metal rods were shoved into their heads in an attempt to scramble their brains, often while they were fully conscious.

Photos of past PETA US demonstrations outside Prada stores are available here and here. For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

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