PETA urges Playmobil to release 'My First Abattoir' set to show realities of dairy industry
The animal welfare charity wants the toy producer to ‘stop lying to children’
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Your support makes all the difference.PETA is calling on toy producer Playmobil to launch a “My First Abattoir” set in order to show children the realities of dairy farming.
Last month, the animal rights organisation urged Playmobil to remove its seemingly happy-looking animal figures from its “Country Large Farm” toy set as they believe they “misrepresent the reality of life for farmed animals, who endure suffering and violence”.
Playmobil's "Country Large Farm" set is currently on sale for £68.99 on online retailer Amazon and includes a plastic mobile milking machine, stables, and three figurines, among several other accessories.
Having received no response from the toy producer, the charity has now proposed a new toy set which includes an abattoir and figurines of dead cows in order to show children how cows are really treated in the dairy industry.
Announcing their proposal this week, PETA’s toy set includes includes two cow figures who have been hung upside down and had their throats slit.
Another figurine depicts a calf who has been placed in a wheelbarrow for disposal, covered in blood, while another is of an angry farmer.
PETA director Elisa Allen told The Independent: "Toys featuring farmed animals invariably belie the reality of life and death for animals raised for food, and by the time children find out the truth, they're so accustomed to consuming other animals' flesh, milk, and eggs that they often don't question doing so.
"It's time we all stopped misleading kids about the horror and cruelty behind every glass of cows' milk and every beef burger.
Allen added that if Playmobil wants to offer toys representing the dairy industry, "it should at the very least not misrepresent the conditions in which they live and die".
"PETA is calling on the company to stop lying to children about the horror and cruelty behind every glass of cows’ milk and every beef burger," she said.
PETA claims that cows used for dairy are sent to slaughter once they no longer produce enough milk to be profitable to farmers.
The charity, whose motto reads in part that “animals are not ours to eat”, opposes speciesism, which the organisation qualifies as a “human-supremacist worldview”.
In response to the proposal, National Farmers' Union dairy board chairman Michael Oakes told The Independent: "PETA want people to turn people away from livestock production so they’re coming from a very different place than the majority of livestock farmers when it comes to portraying the industry.
Oakes added: "We have to be very open about the industry and not hide anything. We try to do that as much as possible but the reality is that cows do end up in the food chain at their end of life.
“If you do eat meat, you can’t hide the fact that we do slaughter animals."
The Independent has contacted The Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers for comment.
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