Eating animals is often so ingrained within a country’s customs and culture that ethical considerations are set aside and the cruelty that is an inherent part of producing and consuming animals is rarely questioned.
Without a baseline attitudinal survey to assess the societal or cultural attitudes of country populations towards animals, it is difficult to assess this critical factor. But a reasonable proxy of society’s values is captured by the quality of the country’s legal and regulatory framework, since it embodies the country’s collective will to discourage, penalize, prohibit, or limit animal cruelty.
It is on this basis that the Voiceless Animal Cruelty Index (VACI) based its rankings on, among other things, a determination of whether that country has in place an animal protection legislative and regulatory framework and an assessment of its quality.
How is the “Sanctioning Cruelty” category measured?
To assess this category, the VACI relies on the Animal Protection Index (API). The API ranks each country’s enabling environment for animal protection based on the quality of the animal protection legislative and regulatory framework.
The API indicators that VACI used for this section are those most relevant to farmed animal welfare:
- Laws against causing animal suffering
- Protecting animals used in farming
- Government accountability for animal welfare
- Incorporation of OIE animal welfare guiding principles and standards into policy and legislation
Learn more about how we measure each country’s performance under this category, and our overall logic behind the VACI.
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