While most people wouldn’t see themselves wearing real fur, leather also comes from animals that are cruelly killed for their skins. Before being turned into belts and bags, many animals endure all the horrors of factory farming – from extreme confinement in filthy cages or pens, to painless castration, chronic infections and diseases caused by extreme overcrowding, and a terrifying journey to the slaughterhouse. More than a billion animals are killed cruelly in the world for the leather trade every year, from cows to calves, horses, lambs, goats, pigs, dogs and cats. When you wear leather, it is difficult to know who owned the skin you are wearing.

A worldwide massacre

Investigations into the leather industry in China and India – two of the world’s three largest leather-producing countries – have revealed horrific abuses. Most of the world’s leather comes from China, where, despite years of campaigning by animal welfare groups, there are still no sanctions against animal abuse in the hide industry. In addition to the cows, sheep and other animals killed for China’s leather industry, an estimated two million cats and dogs are also killed there each year for their skins.

Dogs skinned alive

A PETA Asia investigator has shown what happens in dog slaughterhouses in eastern China. The footage obtained by the investigator shows that, one after another, dogs are violently grabbed by the neck with metal clamps and beaten on the head with a club . Some dogs lose consciousness while others scream and die, seriously injured in the head. Others suffocate after having their throats slit. Finally, they are skinned. The PETA Asia investigator even saw employees skinning dogs that were still alive.

Dogs about to be torn apart can smell, hear and see what is happening to those ahead of them. Many are so terrified that they climb on top of each other in the waiting area, desperately searching for an escape route.

A slaughterhouse worker told PETA Asia’s investigator that they kill up to 200 dogs every day. When the video was filmed, there were 300 live dogs waiting to be slaughtered. According to information obtained by PETA Asia’s investigator, dog skin is made into women’s evening gloves, men’s work gloves, shoes, belts, coat collar trims, and other products. exported around the world . Of course, no company is going to say that its gloves or belts are made from dog skin. One owner of one of the processing plants told PETA Asia’s investigator that his products were marketed as lambskin. If you buy leather, short of a DNA test, there’s virtually no way to know what—or rather who—you’re wearing.

'Sacred cows' killed in India

Although cows are the most sacred animals in India, they are still killed for their skins in this cruel and corrupt trade. Since it is illegal to kill young and healthy cows in most states in India, some of them are poisoned or deliberately made lame in order to be declared “fit” for slaughter.

Many cows are beaten mercilessly on these “death marches,” which travel hundreds of kilometers. When the animals collapse from hunger, exhaustion, injury, and despair, they are forced to stand up by breaking their tails at every joint or by putting tobacco, pepper, or salt in their eyes. Others are moved illegally across borders by being crammed into trucks in such numbers that their bones break. As the trucks pass through bumpy, rocky roads, some cows fall on top of each other and impale themselves on the horns of other cows or are suffocated. Many die before reaching the slaughterhouse.

Once at the slaughterhouse, workers tie their legs and they are thrown into the filth and blood. Their eyes bulge with fear as they watch their fellow cows being killed with blunt blades right in front of them. Sometimes the cows' legs are cut off while they are still conscious, and some are tortured by being skinned alive.

Cruelty Closer to Home

Because leather is the most profitable byproduct of the meat industry, buying leather directly contributes to factory farming, slaughterhouses, and all the cruelty that goes with it. Animals, raised in filthy, overcrowded factory farms, are often caged and deprived of everything that is natural and important to them, such as foraging and raising their young. Most of them undergo painful mutilations, such as having their teeth, tails, and testicles cut off, and being dehorned and debeaked without painkillers. Females are constantly artificially inseminated, and their terrified babies are taken away shortly after birth. At the slaughterhouse, some cows, pigs, chickens, and sheep are slaughtered while they are still conscious and feeling pain.

Toxic tanneries

Like fur, leather is loaded with chemicals to prevent it from decomposing in the buyer’s wardrobe. Mineral salts, formaldehyde, tar derivatives, cyanide dyes and other hazardous substances are used daily in the tanning process. Wastewater and solid waste (such as hides) from tanneries are often released into rivers, stream banks or near fields, polluting water and soil. In 2012, the Blacksmith Institute, an NGO that works to reduce pollution in developing countries, listed tanneries as one of the ten most toxic industries in the world.

Because leather production is so dangerous, the process has been abandoned in most European countries and the US, and operations are being outsourced, effectively endangering the health of people in other parts of the world to allow people in wealthy countries to continue wearing leather gloves and shoes.

PETA Germany investigated the booming leather trade in Dhaka, Bangladesh. They visited the impoverished residential district of Hazaribagh in Dhaka, where 15,000 workers (some as young as ten) toil in more than 200 tanneries. Workers walk barefoot in toxic chromium fumes and handle acid and bleach, which cause chronic skin diseases and even cancer. Although workers are provided with poor-quality boots, they are often not equipped with masks or goggles to protect them from the fumes, which can cause serious respiratory problems. Some workers lose fingers on the conveyor belts. Up to 90 percent of tannery workers die before the age of 50.

Studies in Kanpur, India, have shown that tannery workers have a high death rate, mainly from respiratory diseases resulting from exposure to chromium. One of the most commonly used and dangerous substances in tanning, chromium is the basis of the chemical derivative hexavalent chromium, which is known to cause cancer in humans. Numerous studies have shown a link between sinus and lung cancers and chromium used in tanneries. Studies in Sweden and Italy of tannery workers have found that the risk of cancer is "between 20 and 50 percent higher than the expected risk."

These chemicals don’t go away on their own. Tests by consumer magazines and the European Union’s RAPEX alert system regularly reveal dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium – which also irritates the skin and can cause eczema, for example – in leather shoes, jackets and gloves. On average, a third of the leather products tested are contaminated.

The Hidden Life of Cows

Cows have their own personalities. Some are brave and adventurous; others are shy. They are intelligent, curious animals with a social hierarchy, who can recognize more than 100 members of their herd. They have best friends and can even hold grudges against other cows who have misbehaved towards them.

These gentle giants grieve when a loved one dies or when they are separated from each other and they shed tears over their loss. The bond between a cow and her calf is very strong and there are countless testimonies of mother cows who call incessantly and search for their calves after they have been taken away from them to be sold to beef or veal farms.

What you can do

Always follow fashion that takes animal protection into account. From Midnight on Earth to Stella McCartney, a growing number of designers and high-street and online retailers are offering their customers shoes, jackets, handbags, wallets, iPhone cases and more made from high-quality vegan leather, suede and other materials that don’t harm animals or the planet.