Lancashire council has voted in favour of banning ‘unstunned halal meat’ from school meals; thousands of children across 27 schools in the county will be affected.
Definition of stunning:
According to the official RSPCA definition, Stunning “when performed correctly, causes an animal to lose consciousness, so the animal can’t feel pain”.
There are several methods of stunning; Penetrative captive bolt, which is a gun that fires a metal bolt in to the brain of the animal making it lose consciousness immediately, normally used on cattle and sheep. Electrical, used on sheep and calves, where a current is passed through the animals brain via a large pair of tongs – some pass through the heart killing the animal in the process as well. Specifically for poultry, there is electrical stunning where the birds are shackled upside down, and moved along a conveyor belt, to a water bath where the chicken’s head is submerged in water and and an electrical circuit makes contact with the metal shackles, stunning the bird. There are also controlled atmosphere systems where the birds are left in their transport cages, and placed in to gas chambers where they are exposed to a mixture of gas and air until they die.
Animals will now have to be stunned before they are slaughtered, in order for the meat to be served in as part of the school meals.
The ban which comes as the contract to provide non-stunned halal meat was pending renewal, was proposed by the Conservative council leader Geoff Driver, who said that it was ‘really cruel’ and ‘abhorrent’, to slaughter animals without stunning them first. He insisted the ban was solely brought amid concerns for animal welfare, and was not driven by Islamophobia or anti-antisemitism. This isn’t the first time a ban has been proposed, in 2012 the county council adopted a similar policy.
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The resolution agreed by the council states that while it recognises the Muslim community’s need for halal meat, they are concerned that slaughtering animals without stunning them first causes them unnecessary suffering.
Chicken meat will not be affected by the ban for now, but the council has said they will further investigate stunning poultry before slaughter.
The council has said that it will now consult the Lancashire council of Mosques on how this can be implemented whilst still providing meals that comply with the Muslim community’s beliefs.
There is always a lot debate surrounding halal slaughter and animals right, with many people arguing about inhumane it is to not stun animals before they are slaughtered as they feel more pain. However these concerns can feel insincere at times, when animals are still raised in crammed, diseased and frankly inhumane conditions. Before anything, we need to make sure animals are being treated fairly while they are still living.
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Israa Abid
Israa is a Creative writing and English literature graduate, and currently volunteers for a few charities. In between her routine of nerding out over Dungeons and Dragons, and obsessively eating strawberries, she spends her time writing as much as she can.
