The recent suffering of a cruelly-abused dog in China has highlighted the lack of animal welfare laws in the country. A dog was rescued after it was found dangling from a window by a rope tied around its neck in Guangzhou, south China. The exhausted and distressed dog was being punished by its owner for ‘soiling in the house’, according to a report by the Daily Mail.
The rope around the dog’s neck was so short that the dog was unable to lay down and was found panting and in pain as it struggled to free itself. After it was rescued, the dog was so weak it was unable to lift its head up for water.
Yet the man who carried out this cruelty got away with it because there is no legal mechanism to punish him. No nation-wide animal welfare laws exist in China, except in cases involving zoo animals and those used in research. “Even those laws are routinely flouted,” said David Barritt, Network for Animal’s (NFA) chief campaigner.
In 2009, animal activists and legal experts began circulating a draft law regarding the protection of animals and in 2010, a draft law on the prevention of cruelty to animals came was presented, which proposed a large fine and two weeks' jail be given to people found guilty of animal cruelty. However, till this day, no progress has been made on this.
