Notonthehighstreet has joined a growing list of retailers banning mohair sales in response to an explicit expose released by PETA that showed South African farmers engaging in animal cruelty.
It is understood the online marketplace recently informed the 5000-plus creative small businesses which use its ecommerce platform that it would implement “a ban on the sale of products containing mohair”.
The ban will come into affect from the end of 2019.
READ MORE:
PETA’s video exposé of the mohair industry in South Africa – the source of more than 50 per cent of the world’s mohair – has already prompted dozens of major retailers to ban material, which is made from the hair of angora goats.
Marks & Spencer, Next, Fat Face, Primark, Topshop, Gap, H&M, Zara and Asos have all pledged to stop selling items with mohair fabric.
“Notonthehighstreet recognises that no throw or pair of gloves is worth the blood, fear, and cries of gentle baby goats – and all other retailers should, too,” PETA corporate projects director Yvonne Taylor told Retail Gazette.
“When shopping online, [consumers] should always check products’ material composition carefully to avoid adding any item containing mohair to their shopping baskets.”
The video exposé encompassed 12 farms visited by a PETA Asia eyewitness in January and February of this year.
Watch the full expose here [WARNING: contains distressing footage]:
It shows shearers – who are paid by the volume, not by the hour – dragging goats by the horns and legs and lifting them off the floor by the tail, which could break their spines.
Goat kids who were being shorn for the first time also cried out in fear. Afterwards, workers threw them across the floor.
Many goats’ ears were mutilated with tattoo pliers, and some shearers left goats cut up and bleeding – often with a rough stitch-up and without pain relief.
Farmers also admitted that after shearing, many goats die from exposure to the cold wind and rain.
In August, South Africa’s largest and oldest animal welfare organisation the National Council of SPCAs filed cruelty-to-animals charges against four angora goat farmers based on evidence from PETA Asia’s investigation.
South Africa’s national police force is also investigating the farmers – as well as shearers and other farmworkers.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
