Friday Market Must Be Closed Down!

Kuwait's Friday Market is a brutal animal market in Kuwait City where literally any type of animal imaginable, from Persian cats to monkeys, can be purchased for a price. This market is largely unregulated, so combined with Kuwait's lenient import and cruelty laws, many animals suffer at the expense of human intrigue. Many of these animals are purchased only to be cruelly tortured, killed, or dumped into the desert when the fad wears off. When I lived in Kuwait briefly, I saw the horror of this market... Animals baking in the heat, sick and dying. Rescuers have saved animals with eyes gouged out, faces beaten in, legs broken, and declawed cats left to starve, monkeys with broken bones, nursing litters left for dead, even hyena pups.

Many puppy mills have risen throughout Kuwait in an attempt to fill the rising demand for fashionable pets. Also, rare animals are smuggled through the borders. If the animals survive the horrendous breeding facilities and unregulated importing, they must then face the Friday Market. Here, vendors stack them into small cages or tie them on short chains. Often, the animals are not given food or water. Temperatures reach up to 60C (140F) in Kuwait, cooking many of the poor souls within hours. Some of the vendors set up outside without shelter where the animals literally die a slow death being grilled or baked alive in cages or tied on hot pavement.

If the animals survive the heat, they must also survive the numerous communicable diseases that are rampant in the Market. They are exposed to everything from Parvo virus to Pneumonia. Many of the animals develop respiratory diseases from the poor conditions they were raised in prior to ever reaching the market grounds. There is no enforcement of any legislation regarding communicable diseases. The carcasses of the animals that don't survive are then tossed off to the side or into a dump where wild dogs or stray cats feed off the diseased flesh and continue to spread disease.

Every day, dying animals are tossed into the dumping areas, left for dead, dying slow and painful deaths. But the volunteers from Become a Foster Guardian and other rescues in Kuwait, put on their emotional armor and go every day to the Friday market, to see if they can save even one life. These rescuers pull dying animals out of the garbage. They make a fuss to the vendors and all who will listen, begging to bring the animals inside out of the sun. They put water into dry containers as the animals drink it faster than it can be refilled. They spend their evenings at the veterinarians asking for favors as there is never enough resources to save them all.

This petition is to raise global awareness of this crisis and push Kuwait for legislative change.
We are requesting the following changes:
1. All animals should be sold within the air-conditioned structures in enclosures which provide adequate space, food, and water.
2. All animals in the market should have a veterinarian passbook present to prove vaccination records against communicable diseases.
3. The market must have a veterinarian and law official on site.
4. Only licensed vendors may sell animals.
5. Enforce proper disposal of dead animals.