Maneka urges Indian companies to boycott Australian wool

Maneka Gandhi has appealed to Indian companies to boycott the wool until two "abusive practices" of mulesing and live export of sheeps were ended.

Former Union Minister and member of Animal Welfare Board (AWB), Maneka Gandhi has appealed to Indian companies to boycott the use of Australian wool until two "abusive practices" of mulesing and live export of sheeps were ended.

HT Image

Maneka has dispatched a letter to more than 100 Indian companies asking them not to use Australian wool. The letter is in support of People for Ethical Treatment of Animals' (PETA) international campaign against lamb mutilations and live sheep shipments.

"Indians are gentle people. We do not need the blood of Australian sheep on our hands, but everyone who buys/sells Australian merino wool and its products are contributing to these horrific practices," wrote Maneka.

The companies to which the letters have been addressed include some of the reputed brands using Australian wool for their product line, a PETA release said here today.

PETA had launched the boycott of the Australian wool last year after the Australian government ignored the repeated pleas to ban live sheep exports in which thousands of sheep die each year and to mulesing, a crude mutilation in which farmers use gardening shears to cut large chunks of flesh from lambs' hindquarters without administering them pain killers.

According to PETA, millions of sheep, whose wool is no longer needed, are shipped thousands of miles through all weather extremes, mired in their own waste, aboard open decks of vessels.

Many sick or injured sheep are thrown overboard to sharks or are ground up alive in mincing machine. The torture to the sheep was highlighted in 2003 when the Cormo Express described the death of 5000 sheep at sea.