**VICTORY! Due to our pressure, Zara and major UK retailers Topshop and Asos have committed to stop selling Angora. Thank you to everyone who took action, and especially those who joined our Super Bunny Warriors team. (As of Dec. 19, 2013)**
Details on the campaign:
Huge clothing retailer, H&M, ceased production of all its angora products last week, in response to horrific video footage released by PETA that shows rabbits screaming in pain as their fur is torn off at angora farms in China. Sadly, Zara is refusing to do the same -- at the time of writing, there are still 60 angora items for sale on the Zara website.
Workers in China were secretly filmed by PETA, plucking angora rabbits of all their long, soft fur while they scream. Plucking a rabbit without causing harm takes up to two weeks of gently removing the loosened hair, but here it takes only a few, violent minutes.
After this tortuous experience, which the rabbits endure every three months, many of them appeared to go into shock, lying motionless inside their tiny, filthy cages.
H&M have taken responsibility for this barbaric practice, Zara should too.
Tell Zara to stop production of its angora products immediately, and save the bunnies!
Ninety percent of angora fur comes from China, where there are no penalties for abuse of animals on farms and no standards to regulate the treatment of the animals. The reason for this cruelty comes down to profit, pure and simple. Angora has a trade value of £22 to £28 per kilogram, but the longer hair that comes from plucking, as opposed to shearing, can sell for more than double that.
The big retailers have a responsibility to tell their suppliers that they won’t accept this brutal treatment of angora rabbits. H&M have acted, saying in a statement that it will step up inspections of its sub-suppliers before selling angora again. In the meantime, customers can take back their H&M angora products for a full refund.
If H&M can act, Zara can too. But right now, its stores are full of angora sweaters, gloves, hats, and scarfs. Zara thinks we don’t care where our clothes from, or how they are made. We need to prove it wrong.
Tell Zara we don’t want to see angora on its shelves. Cease production of angora products!
We’ve had major success pressuring clothing retailers before, taking action after the Tazreen and Rana Plaza garment factory collapses in Bangladesh. After months of pressure from SumOfUs members, both Australian brand Woolworths and UK chain River Island signed onto the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh -- a huge win for Bangladeshi garment workers. Let’s do it again.