US RETAIL GIANT EDDIE BAUER JOINS BOYCOTT OF INDIAN LEATHER

US RETAIL GIANT EDDIE BAUER JOINS BOYCOTT OF INDIAN LEATHER

Council for Leather Exports, Indian Government to Blame for Illegal Cruelty to Animals Killed for Skins, Says PETA

Mumbai – After learning about the continuing and incredibly abusive tretment of cattle whose skin is made into leather in India, US retail giant Eddie Bauer has given PETA US fresh assurance that the company will not use Indian leather. Eddie Bauer – a catalogue and online apparel business with more than 400 stores in the US, Canada, Germany and Japan and with 2004 sales totalling more than US$1.1 billion – joins US-based fashion icons Liz Claiborne and Kenneth Cole, which also recently gave PETA US their fresh assurances that they will boycott Indian leather.

When PETA US launched its original boycott of Indian leather in 2000, more than 40 major retailers around the world signed on. As a result, the Indian leather industry lost an estimated US$68 million. PETA India and its worldwide affiliates have relaunched the campaign, which was put on hold in good faith when the Indian government and the Council for Leather Exports (CLE) promised to take significant steps to ameliorate transport and slaughter horrors for cows and other animals used for leather – promises which have not been honoured.

Animals in the Indian leather trade are transported in such crowded conditions that their bones often break, and many suffocate en route to slaughter. The animals are routinely dragged, beaten, and otherwise cruelly and illegally mishandled. At all municipal abattoirs, animals are slaughtered in full view of each other, which is illegal. The CLE refuses to initiate any action which would prevent leather businesses from obtaining hides and skins from suppliers which mistreat animals – even from unlicensed, illegal abattoirs.

“The boycott of Indian leather grows stronger each day that animals are cruelly treated and illegally slaughtered”, says PETA India Coordinator N.G. Jayasimha. “By turning a blind eye to the suffering, all that the government and the CLE are accomplishing is cutting the throat of the leather industry which they seek to protect from scrutiny.”

PETA India’s campaign has gained the support of celebrities all over the world, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Sir Paul McCartney, Pamela Anderson and Jackie Chan.

For more information, please visit PETAIndia.com.

Contact:

N.G. Jayasimha: (0) 9820993075; JayasimhaNG@petaindia.org