Humánny pokrok gets national attention for Slovakia's caged laying hens
Our member, Humánny pokrok, recently published the first ever investigation of Slovakian cage farms for laying hens. Obtained from three different locations, their footage shows laying hens suffering from severe feather loss, untreated injuries, and dying in awful conditions - in one scene, you even see a living hen being thrown into a garbage can and buried alive. Their work, put together with support from Anima International, has swept through the Slovakian media and generated widespread uproar.
In the first 48 hours after publishing, the footage reached one in five people in Slovakia on social media and appeared in all the most influential and prominent media outlets in the country, including the main news program of the biggest TV station, the most popular investigative program (which included an extended interview with one of the people responsible for collecting the footage) and the most popular radio station.
The proposal to ban cages for laying hens in Slovakia was submitted by MP Tomáš Šudík to the Slovak National Council last month. Understandably, Humánny pokrok's footage stirred up further political discussion about the ban.
Humánny pokrok launched their campaign to ban cages for laying hens in 2021, after securing cage-free commitments from almost all of Slovakia's major retailers. Further - after winning a court case which one of the retailers raised against their campaign - Humánny pokrok's work encouraged the Slovak Poultry Union to go cage-free by 2030.
The campaign has collected over 60,000 signatures calling for a ban on cages, and if successful in the first reading, the final vote on the ban could be expected as soon as mid-May or late June.
The Slovakian public has made their stance clear: it's time for the country's farming sector to phase out cages, and free laying hens from their nightmare. These innocent beings deserve better.
