The announcement in September 2023 from the United National (GC26) that children must be protected within law from all kinds of abuse, include animal abuse, was very welcome.
Until recently, Ukraine had the only criminal code that recognised this, but now all signatories to the United Nations must do so.
Exactly what this looks like, of course, will vary from country to country and a recent question asked in the House of Commons by Grahame Morris MP was the latest phase of the campaign by European Link Coalition around this specific area of public protection. The response sadly only referred to the Online Safety Act 2023, new laws brought in to look at media platforms perpetuating cruelty. However, the UN statement means each society must go further with legislation and prevent children witnessing animal abuse anywhere.
Read the Parliamentary response
Our submissions to Parliament to this inquiry centred around the crossover between animal and child sexual violence. Our research showed that 73% of 1042 offences prosecuted between July 2019 and June 2020 committed under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 where child sexual abuse was discovered, animal sexual abuse was also present.
Sentencing Council
We have also made submissions to the Sentencing Council body, who advise Magistrates in England and Wales and were encouraged when ‘animal cruelty committed in front of children’ was recognised as an aggravating factor when deciding punishment under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.
Protect Animals. Protect People.
In England and Wales, we have known for over 250 years that children who harm animals are more likely to harm people and more recent studies confirm that they may also be victims of abuse themselves. This cycle of violence must be broken if society is to be made safer for both animals and children.
Our ‘Protect Animals. Protect People’ campaign aims to create awareness around the crossover between animal and human abuse.
In 2023, we looked at the 44 websites of police forces in England and Wales, and victims of domestic abuse where an animal was involved were simply being directed to the RSPCA cruelty line between 8am and 8pm. The RSPCA do incredible work, but we felt that police forces should recognise this important ‘link’ and offer more information on the subject. For example, we wanted them to highlight where animals within domestic abuse cases could be cared for. As of January 2024, we are proud that as a direct result of our campaign 38/44 police force websites (86%) now contain the information we asked for.
Ukraine
As well as being the only country that specifically includes this aspect of the link in Criminal Code, we also worked with partners to help lower the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 14 as part of our commitment to helping animals in Eastern Europe.
Our police training here encouraged animal crimes to be taken more seriously. A specific case comes to mind in Zaporizhzhya relating to the ‘VKontakte’ online platform, where a woman was committing horrific animal abuse online, but on the direction of an older male through coercion. Both were convicted under Article 300 of their Penal Code that translates roughly as ‘propagation of cruelty’, similar in some ways to the inchoate offences of England and Wales, or ‘incitement’.
In England and Wales, we could learn about aspects of public protection from other countries. No one country has a perfect process. It’s about Breaking the Link of abuse and protecting animals, and children, together.
