Dear friends,
I certainly have a well-deserved candidate for
worst destination!
PETA is encouraging all tourists to join companies like Holiday Systems International and Green Earth Travel in
boycotting St. Kitts due to the growing controversy over the killing of animals at the Caribbean island’s Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine, which is owned by the American DeVry University, and the government’s refusal to enforce its own anti-cruelty laws.
We are asking for your support in this international boycott because PETA has received complaints from students heart-broken over being forced to conduct unnecessary surgeries on animals. Healthy dogs had their stomachs, intestines, and urinary bladders needlessly cut open. After pressure from PETA, these unnecessary dog surgeries were voluntarily stopped by the school. However, sheep still have tissue removed and suffer from infected wounds because skin flaps are improperly sutured. Donkeys still have the nerves in their toes severed, their ligaments cut, plastic tubes inserted through their noses to their stomachs, their abdomens punctured, their tracheas (windpipes) cut, and fluid removed from their jointsafter which they are killed so that students can practice amputating animals’ bones and drilling into their skulls. Other veterinary schools throughout the world ended this practice long ago.
Holiday Systems Insternational (HSI) President and CEO Craig Morganson wrote to PETA: "he apparent willingness of the St. Kitts government to allow Ross University to needlessly harm animals when the island's animal protection law prohibits ‘unnecessary suffering’ of animals is unacceptable. Please be assured that HSI
will no longer allow our more than 300,000 clients the option of booking St. Kitts through HSI until such time their government demonstrates a more civilized respect for animal welfare, and Ross University builds a veterinary teaching hospital and adopts the recommendations outlined by PETA."
Your decision to boycott St. Kitts could help to spare hundreds of healthy animals from going under the knife unnecessarily. For more information, please visit
http://getactive.peta.org/campaign/island_veterinary_school. Thank you for all that you do for animals!
Sean Conner
PETA
Reply to this Hello Sean 😊
I think this subject deserves a thread of its own so I made one.
Mel
Reply to this Okay...I'll jump in...
While I don't advocate kicking dogs or being unnecessarily cruel, I don't agree with PETA's political opinions and, from what I have heard, takes not only extreme opinions but is also not beyond stretching the truth when it suits their ends. Case in point, at some point in the past PETA started putting up items claiming Jesus was a vegetarian, and implying I should be one too - especially if I am a Christian and endeavoring to walk in His footsteps. Now, regardless of your personal opinion on who Jesus is/was and your thoughts on Christianity in general, a brief reading of the Bible - which is where the vast majority of the information on Jesus is available - clearly disputes the claim of vegetarianism. First, in the Bible Jesus declared "all foods clean" (as opposed to previous Jewish thought that certain meats were clean or not for consumption). Furthermore, Jesus was clearly identified as eating fish in the Gospels - namely after the Resurrection when he had to prove He was flesh and bone, not an apparition. Again, regardless of your opinion on Jesus, it doesn't take much to realize that the claim of a "veggie-Jesus" is clearly wrong, but served an aim by PETA. Therefore, because of this argument I wouldn't boycott St. Kitt's purely because of a claim made by an organization I find to be extremist - at best.
To the more general question, I guess it depends on the ethics being espoused. This, of course, opens a huge can of worms because of the bigger question of what is a "correct" ethic to have? In our relativist world today, that is probably a minimum year long college course. It probably is also a life-long discussion to be had. Would I personally visit a place that openly condones an ethic I oppose? It would likely weigh on my decision but hard to say with certainty. Lots of grey areas here. Would I visit a location that condones slavery, either implicitly condones or explictly? Likely a society that condones abhorrent behaviors isn't one that I'd want to visit anyway. However, here's another way of looking at this...if nobody visits a location because of a disagreeable ethic not only does the rest of the world not know what is happening in this place but the people there also don't see another way to live to realize the "correct" way to live.
Again, the question is really a lot larger than it might seem at first...
Reply to this Would I personally visit a place that openly condones an ethic I oppose? It would likely weigh on my decision but hard to say with certainty. Lots of grey areas here. Would I visit a location that condones slavery
What if an anti slavery movement asks everybody in the world to boycott a place that condones slavery in order to show the slave owners and the government there that what they say about slavery being what people want is not true?
What if the slaves ask everybody to wear a yellow t-shirt while visiting that place to show solidarity with their struggle?
What if the slaves want to hold illegal meetings to inform tourists of their plight, would the tourists go to those meetings?
If tourists see an atrocity happening such as a slave being beaten or tortured what would they do?
The question I am asking is what can we do to remain true to our own ethics while travelling?
Does anyone have more questions to add to the above list?
Reply to this Would I personally visit a place that openly condones an ethic I oppose? It would likely weigh on my decision but hard to say with certainty. Lots of grey areas here. Would I visit a location that condones slavery
Well, I've been in many places where slavery still exists. I was recently in the Sudan where the Khartoum Government used slave raiding as a weapon of war during the 21 year civil war with the South. That war ended in 2005, just as the conflict in Darfur started.
Akech Arol Deng has not seen his wife and son since they were seized by Arab militias from their home in south Sudan 19 years ago.
His son, Deng, was just three years old at the time but Mr Arol is sure they are still alive, being used as slaves in the north.
( No return for Sudan's forgotten slaves -
BBC website, 16 March 2007).
That said I stand by my comment in my own blog about the Sudan, when I said:
"I found the people to be the friendliest and most hospitable I've met anywhere in the world" and that "I would recommend anyone to travel to Sudan."
But, then again should I boycott my own country because -
According to UK Government statistics, there are an estimated 4,000 women and children trafficked into prostitution in the UK at any one time. Hundreds more men, women and children are trafficked into forced labour, including domestic slavery, agricultural work, food processing or construction.
Traffickers use coercion, deception or the threat or use of violence to lure men, women and children into slavery. They control people through keeping their passports, demanding their labour in return for a debt or through the use of intimidation and threat.
Anti-Slavery International
Reply to this What you said about the trafficking reminds me of something I read, Stuart. Apparently an alarming percentage of women working in the sex industry are doing it unwillingly.
I wouldnt boycott England either for this, but if we all boycott porn and sex services would it help reduce the number of people being trafficed for this purpose?
Reply to this Sure...supply and demand. That said, sex sells...this time in tragic ways. Unfortunately, I suspect the mentality that puts women into sexual slavery would not be beyond putting people into another form of slavery. Sorry to be the huge cynic...
On the larger topic, I picked slavery only because it was the first "negative ethic" to come to mind. There are, of course, things we can do to remain true to our ethics (and hopefully they are good ethics) while on the road. I will very likely donate money to a church while here, as opposed to giving it on the street where I am uncertain it will be used for good purposes, plus I don't encourage begging. On some of the other suggestions, while they are well-intentioned I wonder if they would actually do the good they're meant to do. The yellow T-shirt only is good if it is recognized by the right people - who hopefully won't shoot you for wearing the yellow T. The questions of being tortured or attending meetings are ones that I suspect even "good" people wouldn't respond to. The meeting, to be practical, is one tourists who would have difficulty finding in the first place for an illegal meeting being held are unlikely to attend while on a vacation. Perhaps its especially the case when the US is a country that half the eligible people can't be persuaded to take 30 minutes of one day every 2 years to vote. As far as being beaten, I think fear would set in for most people. Even if we would respond, many of us would - to be realistic - say we're in a foreign country with little comprehension of the laws or customs to really react and not get into trouble ourselves, which may not do much to help those we were trying to help.
Sigh...I'm sorry to be such a "downer" here, I realize I'm being very cynical. Perhaps the answer is in trying to respond in a different way than boycotting traveling. I understand that "voting with your dollar and your feet" can be powerful, I just fear there's a number of other considerations we have to make on how to act in the best manner to an ethic that is objectionable.
Of course, there still remains the question - at times - of what is the "correct" ethic? To a socialist, someone espousing capitalist ethics would be objectionable...
Reply to this As far as being beaten, I think fear would set in for most people. Even if we would respond, many of us would - to be realistic - say we're in a foreign country with little comprehension of the laws or customs to really react and not get into trouble ourselves, which may not do much to help those we were trying to help.
We could report the beating to Amnesty or one of the other organisations which fight for peoples rights??
Reply to this Hypothetical situation
You are travelling in a country where the locals are very hospitable and taking good care of you. You are feeling safe because you know they will help you if you have any problems. Then the most important man of the village whose house you are staying in offers you one of his slaves for the duration of your visit to take care of your every need. From what you know about this culture, turning down this kind offer may be a grave insult to the very influential person who offered the slave. What do you do?
Reply to this There is one problematic area where I think individual travelers can have an impact: child sexual tourism, and child prostitution. The problems are particularly prevalent in Southeast Asia. In the Mekong river area, it is estimated that 30-35% of all sex workers are between 12 and 17 years of age. Also they are not in the business voluntarily; they are slaves. Although the problem will never go away, there are significant successful efforts being made by governments at all levels starting with the United Nations by Non governmental organizations (NGOs) and by some very large companies in the travel industry.
The organization End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) has developed a code of conduct for the travel industry which has been adopted by the French hotel chain ACCOR, the British tour giant TUI Travel PLC, the American company Carlson Group and several other large companies. Companies that adopt the code commit themselves to the following six measures which have the effect of denying the use of their properties for the sexual exploitation of children. Their web sites, ads and brochures state that they have adopted the code. Unfortunately most US-based hotel and tour companies have made corporate decisions not to adopt the code.
Individual travelers can contribute toward a decrease in the sexual exploitation of children by preferentially patronizing travel companies that have adopted the code. If you see what appears to be an incident of child sexual tourism or child prostitution, report it to your hotel and to the local police force. Don't give money to children begging or selling trinkets on the street. They are very likely to be slaves and all the money they collect goes straight into the pockets of their owners.
Ron
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