What made you decide to become an animal rights activist?
´I have liked animals since I was a little girl. When I was in high school, I saw a video that showed mistreatment of chickens. That was one of the things that made me decide to fight for better animal rights. I have been an activist for ten years and during that time I went from rescuing street dogs to changing the situation on a political level.´
Tell us about your recent accomplishments.
´Recently, I have worked as an advisor of a state deputy in the Mexican state of Puebla. During this cooperation, I helped creating a law that bans the use of animals in circuses. The law passed and is now active. At the moment, I´m working on a program which strives to ban animal drawn carriages in the streets. I also give classes and organize workshops to explain the importance of animals in our daily lives – whether we talk about animals used as companions, for meat, leather or entertainment.´
Can you tell us about your PhD research?
´ I focus on Animal Protection Public Policies in Mexico. Since 2012, a lot of new regulations related to animal rights have been enacted. These regulations ban many culturally embedded practices, such as cock or bull fights. I´m trying to see how well are these regulations being implemented. I focus on 14-16 municipalities and I interview government officers and people from non-governmental organizations to find out what the current situation is.´
What have you found out so far?
´The implementation of the new laws is quite low. There is still very little focus on animal rights; people are not fully aware of what animal mistreatment is. Authorities lack resources to change the situation. However, the topic has received a lot of attention on social media and things are slowly changing for better.´
Why do you think it´s important to bring more attention to animal rights?
´Mexico – and other countries - still needs to take many steps on the road towards good animal treatment. To name a few examples: There are still large populations of stray cats and dogs in Mexico. There have even been cases of rabies lately. In rural parts of Mexico, animal sacrifices during religious festivities are still common and culturally accepted. Almost 50% of animals used for food are killed in illegal slaughterhouses.
The issue of animal rights is a new topic in Mexico, but I have seen an evolution towards a better animal treatment in the last ten years. There have been many new laws passed in the past few years and people are becoming more aware of the issue.´
