If the international community were to raise the issue of the lack of effective legislative protection for animals in Sri Lanka incorporating modern standards of treatment of animals, in addition to their never-ending spotlight on the country’s human rights track record, Sri Lanka’s politicians and law makers will have nowhere to turn. We will become a pariah state overnight in world councils and will be placed in the same category of ‘failed’ states that lack a moral and ethical foundation for proper governance. We must realize even now that the subject of animal welfare can no longer be sidelined without paying a heavy price particularly in respect to a country’s international image.
With over 70% of the population being Buddhist it is a national shame that our elected representatives have fallen shy of enacting the Animal Welfare Bill tabled in Parliament in 2010 as a Private Member’s Bill and which has its genesis in the Animal Welfare Bill drafted and approved by the Law Commission in 2006.
It is disgraceful and morally indefensible that our law makers have descended to this low level of indifference and neglect towards the welfare of animals. Due to our pro- crastination, we have moved very close in this respect to several Islamic nations like Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, and Sudan that by deliberate choice refuse to provide legislative protection to animals. In their view, animals are there to serve the needs of man (and woman) as prescribed in their religious texts and therefore how one treats animals is none of the business of the state. To us in Sri Lanka these are unenlightened attitudes which go against the grain of Buddhist thinking and practice, but it is the sad reality of today, that it is these unenlightened views that increasingly shape both public policy and law making in this country. A far cry from the noble principles of governance prescribed in the Dasa Raja Dharma (Ten Royal Qualities) and Avihimsa (non- harm to other living beings) being one of them.
While our law makers drag their feet over this proposed new bill of law, thousands of animals both in captivity and wilderness continue to suffer and die. In turn, Sri Lanka has unnecessarily gained huge amounts of negative media coverage, tourist literature critical of treatment of animals in Sri Lanka and condemnation from animal welfare groups based locally and overseas because of our Parliament’s almost total disregard for animal welfare. The Parliament of Sri Lanka has further become conspicuous in comparison to the legislatures in several other countries by the marked absence of voices in Parliament dedicated to the noble advocacy of calling consistently for better treatment and protection of animals.
The need to enact the Animal Welfare Bill is further strengthened by an international Petition sponsored by the Dharma Voices for Animals (DVA) which was launched in the USA recently and gathering momentum the world over, calling for the immediate enactment of the Animal Welfare Bill in Sri Lanka.
http://dharmavoicesforanimals.org/petitions/
