At dawn, an indescribable odor permeates the air of the Tsuen Wan abattoir—this is the collective fear released by hundreds of stressed cattle transported overnight to the end of their lives. Some of them tremble, their hooves unsteady from standing for long periods on wet metal plates.

According to a report submitted by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) to the Legislative Council in 2022, the government had planned to submit a bill in the second half of this year to amend the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance (Cap. 169), one important revision aimed at enhancing enforcement powers to prevent cruelty to animals and protect them from suffering (including physical and mental suffering). However, as of 2023, this commitment has yet to be fulfilled.

Every year, over 1.14 million pigs, cows, and sheep meet their end in Hong Kong’s slaughterhouses. The entire process—from farming, transportation to slaughter—often described as the “farm to table” chain, remains hidden from public view, becoming the darkest and least regulated aspect of animal welfare policy.

• Legal Vacuum: Outdated Regulations and Lack of Welfare Standards
  
  Unlike the growing concern for companion animals, the welfare of economic animals in Hong Kong has long been in a state of systemic legal vacuum. The primary legislation regulating slaughterhouses, the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance and its subsidiary Slaughterhouse Regulations, focuses entirely on food safety and hygiene, making almost no mention of the welfare that animals should receive in their final moments.
  
  This means that the law only cares whether the meat is pathogen-free and suitable for human consumption, ignoring whether the animals that produce this meat endure unnecessary fear and suffering during the process. This regulatory logic, which fully objectifies animals, is at odds with international animal welfare standards.
  
  The World Organisation for Animal Health has long established detailed welfare standards for land animal transportation and slaughter, emphasizing the importance of stress reduction and the use of humane stunning methods. However, Hong Kong has not translated these international standards into local law. The operations of slaughterhouses—ranging from stunning to bleed-out—lack mandatory legal regulations on specific methods, equipment standards, and operator training, relying solely on industry self-regulation.
  
• Slaughter Realities: Overlooked Suffering and Untransparent Operations
  
  Behind opaque walls, the final journey of economic animals is fraught with welfare risks. Local animal protection groups have revealed in investigations before 2023 that problems are pervasive at several key stages:
  
  • Transportation and Waiting for Slaughter: After being transported for long periods, animals often find themselves in crowded, noisy waiting areas lacking proper drinking water, resting, and securing facilities. Extended periods of stress lead to extreme fear among the animals and may cause meat quality issues like “dark cutting,” affecting economic value.
    
  • Stunning Process: This is the most crucial step in determining whether animals suffer. Effective stunning must ensure that animals immediately and continuously lose consciousness until death. However, poor equipment maintenance, unstable voltage or pressure, and inadequate training for operators can lead to failures in stunning. Evidence suggests that some animals enter subsequent processes without having fully lost consciousness.
    
  • Formalized Regulation: The current frequency of official inspections is low and often pre-notified, making it difficult to reflect genuine daily operations. The lack of independent third-party audits and mandatory closed-circuit television monitoring renders regulations merely formal; inhumane practices are hard to uncover and rectify.
    
• Lack of Accountability: Fragmented Responsibilities and Blurred “Duty of Care”
  
  The root of the economic animal welfare issue lies in the comprehensive lack of accountability mechanisms. From legislation to enforcement, responsibility is fragmented and blurred.
  
  First, the allocation of responsibilities is fragmented. The Food Environment and Hygiene Department is responsible for slaughterhouse licensing and hygiene, while the AFCD is theoretically responsible for animal welfare, but lacks specific enforcement powers and clear standards regarding slaughterhouses, leading to a situation where “everyone is responsible but no one is able to manage.”
  
  Second, the delays in the legislative process have hindered the establishment of a crucial “Duty of Care” system. Since 2019, the government has proposed legislative amendments to introduce “Duty of Care,” requiring those responsible for animals (including farmers, transporters, and slaughterers) to take proactive measures to ensure animal welfare. If this responsibility could clearly extend to slaughterhouse operators, it would represent a revolutionary advance. However, this revision remains in the “research” and “draft preparation” stages as of 2023 and has not been realized.
  
• Global Perspectives: Trends in Legislation, Certification, and Transparency
  
  Global progress in economic animal welfare is primarily achieved through three pathways, each worthy of Hong Kong’s consideration:
  
  • Specialized Legislation: The EU has the most stringent animal welfare regulatory framework globally, with detailed mandatory regulations regarding the living spaces, transportation times, and slaughter methods for various economic animals. For instance, traditional stunning methods that cause prolonged suffering for animals are explicitly prohibited.
    
  • Welfare Certification Systems: Programs like Australia’s “RSPCA certification” and North America’s “Animal Welfare Certification” provide certification labels for farms and slaughterhouses that meet high welfare standards, guiding consumer choice and pressuring the industry to upgrade.
    
  • Mandatory Transparency: Countries like the UK require slaughterhouses to install closed-circuit television in critical areas, enabling enforcement agencies to conduct random checks on recorded footage. This greatly enhances the traceability and accountability of operations.
    
    The core of these measures is to transform animal welfare from an invisible moral option into a legally binding requirement supported by standards and verifiable data.
    
• Action Blueprint: Establishing an Accountable Protection System for the Voiceless
  
  To end the invisible suffering of economic animals, Hong Kong must initiate a systematic reform. We propose the following specific and actionable recommendations:
  
  • Short-term Actions (within one year)
    
    • Create and Publish a “Practical Code for Economic Animal Welfare”: The AFCD should immediately collaborate with experts, veterinarians, and industry representatives to develop detailed technical guidelines covering the entire process from transportation, waiting for slaughter, stunning, to slaughter, based on international standards. Initially released as guidance, it should clearly serve as the basis for future enforcement.
      
    • Implement a Voluntary Certification Pilot for Slaughterhouses: Collaborate with animal welfare organizations to launch a localized welfare certification program, encouraging and assisting leading slaughterhouses in making improvements to achieve certification and set industry benchmarks.
      
  • Mid-term Reforms (one to three years)
    
    • Legislatively Implement “Duty of Care” and Expand Its Applicability: Efforts must be made to push for amendments to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Ordinance, ensuring that “Duty of Care” clearly covers all commercial operators involved in farming, transportation, and slaughter. Simultaneously, significantly increase the penalties for animal cruelty offenses to create a genuine deterrent.
      
    • Legislate Mandatory Monitoring in Critical Areas: Amend laws to require all slaughterhouses to install closed-circuit television in areas for unloading, driving, waiting, stunning, and bleeding animals, with recorded footage retained for at least three months for AFCD audits.
      
    • Establish Specialized Supervision and Complaint Channels: Create a unit within the AFCD specifically for handling economic animal welfare complaints and publicly advertise a reporting hotline and channels to accept complaints about improper operations of transportation vehicles or slaughterhouses.
      
  • Long-term Vision
    
    • Comprehensively Legalize Welfare Standards: Based on the mature operation of the Practical Code, amend relevant points into the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance or establish a specialized Animal Welfare Ordinance to grant legal enforceability.
      
    • Promote Public Education and Market Choice: Launch public campaigns to educate consumers about the relationship between animal welfare, food safety, and meat quality. Encourage retailers to label high-welfare meat sources, creating market incentives for change.

Every piece of meat on our table once belonged to a life. The growing compassion of Hong Kong society for companion animals should not stop at cats and dogs. Neglecting the welfare of economic animals is a blank space in our social conscience.

The lag in reform is as much about legislative delays as it is about selective neglect. In 2023, it is time to confront this long-neglected issue. Establishing a transparent, accountable economic animal welfare system that meets international standards is not just for animals; it defines what kind of civilized society we aspire to be.

The first and most important step on this path of reform is to let light shine into those closed walls. Only by seeing can change become possible; only through accountability can we end endless suffering.