Pakistan is not an animal friendly country. Let it be our wild life or stray animals, people generally have a hostile and negative attitude towards them. You! takes a look…
Empathy for living beings - as people say - is supposed to be a human trait. It helps us understand the pain and sufferings of people around us; be it another fellow human being or animals. This understanding makes us want to help them and care for others. However today, we have become so incapable of showing empathy that we fail to look beyond ourselves. Despite the technological developments and economic growth, we fail to behave in a way humans should.
The mistreatment of animals in Pakistan primarily stems from a lack of education and empathy for animals. Also, the lack of laws to protect animals from abuse and neglect doesn’t help matters either. In a country where any discussion on religion can bring with it immense aggression, defensiveness and zero tolerance for open dialogue, we have always found it bizarre how some fail to truly embody and live their faith in its truest sense; which also includes being compassionate to animals.
Thousands of dogs are being killed in the streets of almost all the cities of Pakistan as the Government of Pakistan ‘culls’ more than 50,000 dogs each year. There are no laws for animal protection, criminal offence against animal abusers or an open policy of killing stray dogs on yearly basis. Moreover, there are no animal rescue schemes or shelters provided by the government. Karachi and Lahore have the highest rate of dog kills each year with more than 20,000 dogs killed in these two cities alone. For smaller cities, the average rate of dog kills per year is in the range of 3000 to 6000 dogs. Furthermore, nowadays, with restaurants and eateries downing shutters and food trucks parked at homes, strays have been struggling to find food to kill their hunger. They have nothing to eat, not even leftovers that they always relied on. This also became the reason of many strays die of hunger, resulting in further decrease of stray animals in the country.
The concept of shelter for animals or animal rescue organisations in Pakistan is far from reality. Even the general public appreciates the killing of thousands of dogs each year. Todd’s Welfare Society (TWS) is an animal shelter and rescue NGO. It was formed to protect and save injured, sick, abused and abandoned animals of Lahore in March 2016. It was firstly an animal shelter through which they rescued hundreds of animals. Apart from rescuing, it also holds medical camps for donkeys and local animals around Lahore. In these camps, they vaccinate, deworm and treat injured animals. According to Kiran Maheen, Founder of TWS, “Pakistan is not an animal friendly country. Let it be our wild life or stray animals, people generally have a hostile and negative attitude towards them. How many times have we heard of fruit bats, seals and porcupines being bludgeoned to death? What we don’t understand, we fear and then kill. It’s the same for stray animals. Till date, Pakistanis have not been able to, or made an effort to understand dogs. This is because culturally and religiously, there is a lot of intolerance towards the mere existence of dogs in the subcontinent. Dogs are considered, impure and bad.
“There is also less awareness among people; you will see an average person putting milk out for a cat, but a dog they will shoo away. People think that all dogs have rabies, so any normal dog walking on the road is looked upon with fear and disgust,” shares Kiran.
When the scribe further inquired about the culture of ill treatment towards stray animals, Kiran adds, “Unless we start to educate our people, this barbaric behaviour towards stray dogs would keep going. Compassion and empathy are two of the basic pillars of humanity, and it makes us so sad to say that our average citizen does not have them. We need to fight back against this culture of abuse and create a more animal friendly environment like Turkey. One of the basic steps towards it is through awareness. Teach your kids, teach your adults, teach everyone you meet about animal rights. Tell them about compassion, tell them about empathy. Tell them how they have a responsibility to the living beings around them. If you don’t like a dog, that’s alright but that doesn’t give anyone the right to hurt them. Most people go out of their way to hit strays for merely existing.”
TWS also holds awareness camps in schools and universities. In these awareness camps, it designs workshops and short seminars to educate students about animal rights and the current animal abuse taking place in the society. The organisation believes that education and awareness on this topic is one of the most important steps towards creating a more empathetic, and compassionate environment for animals. “One of the easiest ways anyone can help local animals, is by leaving food and water outside. You can leave water bowls on your terrace or roof for birds, with leftover soaked bread and roti. You can also leave bowls in your gardens for cats and outside your homes for dogs. In summers, so many animals die from heat exhaustion, just the mere act of leaving cold water outside, can save so many lives,” suggests Kiran.
Apart from organisations and shelter houses, it is the influencers and celebrities who are taking part in the awareness of animals’ rights, showing empathy towards them and doing little acts of kindness that go a long way. “It started when I saw an injured dog outside my new house. Kids were teasing him by kicking and throwing stones at him. I was also really scared of the dog but I intervened and tried to school them,” expresses Samreen Essa, a social media influencer and a travel and lifestyle blogger. “I started feeding the dog and noticed that other residents started feeding him too.
With this, we had other strays joined the neighbourhood as well. Now many people from my society feed them their leftovers. Come lockdown and I started going out in other places with my husband to feed dogs. We started with one dog, then five and now the number has increased. I initiated a campaign on my social media and it inspired a lot of people countrywide. Now, we have many people who are feeding stray cats and dogs in different cities. I have temporarily moved out of Karachi but my campaign #nostraystayshungry is carried out by my parents and siblings. They are going out every day to feed stray dogs of our area,” informs Samreen.
Actor Ushna Shah is often seen very active on social media who always tries to voice her opinions regarding the issue. In a country where we don’t see many celebrities taking part in such activities or associating themselves with causes like these, Ushna doesn’t shy away from breaking the norms and doing the needful. “I love animals and have got two dogs of my own. I have been working on various forums to prevent their culling. The thing is we as a society need to rise above this. Killing strays is never going to be a long-term solution to control stray population in the country but spay and neuter is,” stresses Ushna.
While commenting on the phenomenon of co-existing, the ‘Bewafa’ actor gives her two cents, “I feel in the current crises if nothing else we need to realise that we cannot be cruel to nature and living things and expect no reprisal. We cannot set fire to the Amazon and expect nature not to respond. We need to wake up as we share this planet with other species too. If we won't learn to co-exist, we might not exist soon.”
Animal enthusiast and a writer by profession, Rameeza Ahmad from Lahore shares her insights on breed obsession and importance of adoption of stray animals. “I strongly believe all animals are equal. I don’t understand the breed obsession a lot of Pakistanis have. They want a ‘pure’ German Shepard or a beautiful white ‘Persian’ cat. We project our own insecurities on animals as well, it seems. Rescuing animals and adopting them from shelters or from streets is so much better.
They give you the same love and affection. It makes no sense to spend thousands on breeders who treat animals cruelly just for their reproductive purposes. People should really consider whether they want an animal to love or just something else to show off about,” comments Rameeza. On the other hand, Abeer Kasiri who is a Karachi-based illustrator and a true cat lover, tells, “If you want to understand the mental state of our nation, see how they treat animals. They kick them, throw stones, beat them up, keep them hungry and then wonder why Allah is not pleased with us. It takes nothing to be kind to them. It's a bare minimum that one can do! To give them food or water. And, please teach your children to be kind to them rather than being scared to them.”
It is important that certain laws should be passed to protect animal rights in Pakistan to end barbarism against these little creatures. “We need laws for animal rights. For the last few years, Todd’s has tried to get something passed but sadly the government hasn’t taken much interest. Currently, there is no law which recognises the right of stray animals. There are no laws to stop animal abuse or punish the abusers. The only law we have is, Prevention of Cruelty to Animal Act (1890) which needs to be updated, the fines and punishment also needs to be increased. Furthermore, we need laws to protect animals from offenders who repeatedly abuse and neglect them. These people, who are mentally unstable and drive pleasure from killing stray animals are rarely ever punished. They then go further to harm human beings. Unless the government makes it a criminal act to harm animals, the abuse will never stop,” concludes Kiran Maheen.
