Mexican humane law passes: eyewash, or a start against endemic violence?

Unanimously passed Mexican law could be a new beginning,  but results may take time to see

MEXICO CITY––Does it matter that the Mexican federal legislature has passed non-binding constitutional protections for animals,  in a nation with violent crime and murder rates three to five times higher than those of the U.S.,  plus notoriously corrupt law enforcement,  where drug cartel war lords openly run the courts and prisons in much of the country?

An optimistic view is that the new Mexican legislation represents a big step toward a less violent society,  where cruelty to animals will less easily become precursor to crimes against humans,  especially women.

A pessimistic view is that the new legislation is simply eyewash,  a political gesture toward doing something to curtail crime and violence that does not put Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo and her government at immediate risk of having their heads lined up on a seedy bar somewhere––or of simply disappearing.

“Third-worst country in the world”

“There are 80 million pets in Mexico,  but 70% of all dogs and cats are homeless,”  opened Mexico News Daily in describing the constitutional amendments.

“Mexico is the third-worst country in the world with regard to the mistreatment of animals, according to a 2021 report by the national statistics agency INEGI,”  Mexico News Daily added.

Nonetheless,  Mexico News Daily exulted,  “The Mexican Senate has approved historic legislation that,  once ratified by the states,  will enshrine animal protection in the constitution.

“The bill was passed unanimously by the Chamber of Deputies on November 12,  2024,  450-0,  and,  on Nov. 20,  2024,  the Senate approved the measure unanimously as well,  117-0.”

So far,  so good.  But “The legislation must now be approved by a majority of Mexico’s 32 local congresses to become law,”  Mexico News Daily explained.

What does the new law do?

Even if that happens,  what does the new law do?

“The new law amends three articles of the constitution and empowers Congress to enact animal welfare laws,”  Mexico News Daily said.  “It also mandates the humane treatment of animals as a mandatory guideline in all educational institutions nationwide.

“The reform aims ‘to protect animals,  guarantee their well-being,  provide them attention, good treatment,  maintenance,  accommodation,  natural development,  health and avoiding abuse,  cruelty,  suffering,  zoophilia and the deformation of their physical characteristics,  as well as ensuring the health and satisfactory treatment and general welfare of animals,’  Mexico News Daily quoted.

“The reform also requires Congress to pass legislation that coordinates all federal,  state and municipal laws related to animal protection and establishes penalties for violations,”  the Mexico News Daily coverage added.

“This will be interesting to watch”

Commented Eric Mills,  Action for Animals coordinator,  from Oakland,  California,  “This will be interesting to watch.  The national sport of Mexico is charreria,  which features brutal ‘horse tripping’ and ‘steer tailing’ events.  Then there is bullfighting and cockfighting,  rampant throughout the country.  Will they all now be outlawed?”

Don’t bet on it.

The rules of the Mexican Federation of Charreria prohibit most of the blatant violence toward animals exhibited at every U.S. charreada documented since 2022 by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness,  and might even be observed at some of the larger televised charreadas in Mexico,  but appear to be completely ignored otherwise.

Bullfighting is back in Mexico City

Bullfighting on January 28,  2024 returned to Plaza México in Mexico City,  the world’s largest bullring,  six weeks after the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice on December 6,  2023 lifted an injunction that had suspended bullfighting since May 2022.

The suspension of bullfighting was revoked,  said Associated Press,  until “a decision is reached on whether bullfights affect animal welfare.

(See Bullfighting, cockfighting, & mass murder in Mexico with U.S. links.)

Anton Aguilar,  executive director of the Humane Society of the U.S. subsidiary Humane Society International Mexico,  took the optimistic view.

“Part of a broader trend of national progress”

“This constitutional milestone is part of a broader trend of national progress in animal welfare legislation,”  Aguilar posted to the December 3, 2024 edition of A Humane World,  Humane Society of the U.S. president Kitty Block’s blog

“In 2017, Mexico City’s Constitution recognized animals as sentient beings,”  Aguilar wrote,  marking a significant cultural and legal shift.  That same year, the federal government criminalized dogfighting,”  an accomplishment that so far appears not to have resulted in any prosecutions.

“In 2021,”  Aguilar continued,  “Mexico became North America’s first country to ban cosmetics animal testing.  By 2022,  Tlaxcala became the 31st state (of 32) to include penalties for animal cruelty in its local criminal code.

“And just this past month,  Oaxaca passed its first statewide animal protection bill,  closing a loophole that made it the last state in the country lacking such legislation,”  Aguilar said.

Easy targets

Mexico also banned the use of wild animals in circuses in 2015,  according to Animal Defenders International,  and Mexico City,  the national capital,  banned dolphin shows in 2017.

But these legislative victories have hit relatively easy targets,  not culturally entrenched practices protected by organized crime.

Vox writer Sam Delgado was also among the optimists.

“On December 2,  2024,”  Delgado began,  “Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo signed a set of constitutional reforms that will pave the way for a comprehensive federal animal welfare law. The changes represent the first-ever mention of nonhuman animals in the Mexican Constitution,”  Delgado rejoiced,  crediting the organizations Animal Equality Mexico [Igauldad Animal Mexico], Movimiento Consciencia,  and HSI/Mexico.

Farmed animals

“Beyond Mexico,”  Delgado said,  “nine countries include references to animals in their constitutions,”  of which the first was India in 1960,  “but those mentions have generally been brief and open to interpretation.

“Plenty of countries have laws against animal mistreatment,”  Delgado acknowledged,   “but that does not mean they have been particularly effective at stopping violence against animals.

“Part of the problem,”  Delgado explained,  “is that these laws very often exempt farmed animals such as cows,  pigs,  and chickens.  That’s where Mexico’s reforms stand out:  they are intended to protect all animals,  including farmed animals.”

But the Mexican reforms can only take effect if ratified by at least 17 of the 32 states,  and even then only if backed by enforcement regulations.

El Diablo

El Diablo will lurk in the details,  as in the U.S.,  where the federal Animal Welfare Act exempts rats,  mice,  birds,  farmed animals,  and non-captive wildlife.

“The reforms in Mexico,  the world’s largest Spanish-speaking country,  represent a major advancement in the status of animals globally,”  Delgado assessed.  “It could set a precedent for other countries in Latin America.

“Still,  as one of the world’s top producers of beef,  chicken,  pork,  dairy,  and eggs,”  Delgado mentioned,  “Mexico has an intensive animal agriculture industry.  Business interests will undoubtedly want to influence the writing of animal welfare laws that could impact their bottom lines.  The question now is what changes the constitutional reforms will really bring to animal law in Mexico, and how effective they will be.

Possible U.S. effects

“Previously,”  Delgado explained,  “animal welfare was largely left up to local and state authorities, and the result has been uneven laws and enforcement.  While all states in Mexico have animal protection legislation,  just three include farmed animals:  Hidalgo,  Colima, and as of last month,  Oaxaca.

“And though Mexico does have a federal law on animal health that focuses on farmed animals and includes some broad mentions of animal welfare,”   Delgado continued,  “it was created to protect human health rather than animals.  The same goes for Mexico’s federal wildlife law,  which was written with a focus on sustainability and conservation,  rather than on protecting individual animals from cruelty.”

The new Mexican legislation could eventually have some effect on cockfighting, charreada,  and outlaw quarter horse racing in the U.S.,  all of which attract chiefly Mexican-American participants.

(See What will deportations do to cockfighting, charreada, & outlaw horse racing?)

Emboldened U.S. humane law enforcement?

If cockfighting becomes illegal in Mexico,  along with the events in charreada involving violence toward animals,  and quarter horse racing becomes regulated to the same extent as thoroughbred racing,  the cultural pretext for cruelty to animals as entertainment will be diminished.

Participation may then become socially unacceptable.

Meanwhile,  U.S. law enforcement may become emboldened to act more often and more decisively against cockfighting,  horse-tripping,  and steer-tailing in particular.

Observed Moody County,  Iowa sheriff Troy Wellman in a December 8,  2024 guest column for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader,  “Last week,  in Riverside,  California,  federal authorities arrested Cristian Fernando Gutierrez Ochoa,  son-in-law of the Jalisco New Generation cartel boss ‘El Mencho,’  accused of drug trafficking and money laundering after living under a false identity.

“His hobby?  Like so many other cartel leaders,  it was cockfighting.

“Money-laundering,  narcotics trafficking,  & human-on-human violence”

“In this case,”  Wellman acknowledged, “Gutierrez Ochoa was not nabbed for illegal cockfighting.  But so often,  when local or federal law enforcement do arrest people for cockfighting or dogfighting,  they nab people involved with organized crime and they are knee-deep in money laundering,  narcotics trafficking, and human-on-human violence.

“People who ignore our animal cruelty laws and norms of civil society will have little hesitancy in violating our other laws,”  Wellman opined.  “And with a hobby grounded on watching animals stab and tear each other apart,  it’s no surprise that these animals fighters turn their violent instincts against members of our communities.

“For so many reasons,”  Wellman wrote,  “the National Sheriffs’ Association has made it a priority to pass the Fighting Inhumane Gambling and High-Rick Trafficking Act (FIGHT) Act,  H.R. 2742 and S. 1529, in this Congress.  This measure,  backed by 750 agencies and organizations, will give more enforcement tools to law enforcement to dismantle dogfighting and cockfighting networks.”

Cockfighting & murder

Wellman went on to recall briefly,  as ANIMALS 24-7 reported earlier,  how 20 people were killed at a cockfight in Michoacán,  Mexico,  on March 27,  2022,  followed by the massacre of 14 people at a cockfight in Guerrero,  Mexico,  on January 6,  2024.

Some Americans were involved in both mass shootings.

(See 20 murdered at U.S.-owned Mexican cockpit and Bullfighting, cockfighting, & mass murder in Mexico with U.S. links.)

“All we need is to check the court dockets in Texas counties to understand that cockfighting is a little understood feature of the border crisis,”  contended Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle in September 2024,  also campaigning for Congress to pass the FIGHT Act.

Pacelle described six recent incidents involving cockfighters either transporting gamefowl from the U.S. into Mexico or Mexican cockfighters participating in U.S. cockfighting derbies,  one of which,  in Dallas,  ended in a shooting.

Mexican cultural affinity

ANIMALS 24-7 investigation indicates that relatively few illegal immigrants to the U.S. from Mexico participate in cockfighting,  charreada,  and outlaw quarter horse racing,  possibly to avoid the risk of apprehension and deportation,  but among 773 arrestees for alleged cockfighting activity in recent years, 63% have had Spanish surnames.

Only 119 alleged cockfighters in the sample,  or 15%,  were busted in U.S. states bordering Mexico,  but 106 of them,  or 89%,  had Spanish surnames,  indicating probable Mexican cultural affinity.

Among identifiable participants in outlaw quarter horse racing,  including arrestees and others identified by news media,  87% are Spanish-speaking,  primarily of Mexican descent,  though some South Americans are also prominently involved as jockeys.

(See “Outlaw” horse racing: drugs, murder, mayhem, & not just to the horses.)

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