SA’s live animal export industry is not just cruel — it is a sustained assault on sentient beings with intrinsic value, our environment and human rights. Our constitution enshrines foundational values such as dignity, equality and freedom; embraces principles such as ubuntu; and guarantees various human rights.
As our law has rightly found, these values, principles and rights, including in relation to environmental protection, extend beyond humans to encompass the protection of animals and the natural world. Yet the reality of live animal export blatantly violates these constitutional commitments, exposing a system that prioritises profit over compassion, and commerce over conscience.
Every year tens of thousands of SA animals, such as sheep, goats and cattle, are crammed into overcrowded vessels and bound for countries including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia the United Arab Emirates and Mauritius. For weeks at sea, these sentient beings endure prolonged filthy, suffocating conditions marked by extreme heat, toxic ammonia from mounting waste, and severely limited access to food and water.
Those that are “lucky” enough, die before the end of the journey — many of the rest suffer through injuries, illnesses, exhaustion and heat stress until they arrive at the relevant foreign port, ultimately destined for slaughter. This sustained cruelty is not anecdotal, nor incidental — it is inherent and inseparable from the live animal export trade.
Beyond the animals, the harms of live export should concern everyone, particularly in the context of the right to a protected environment. Both the rearing of animals as well as long-distance shipping generate substantial carbon emissions that fuel climate change; waste discharged from ships pollutes oceans and harms marine biodiversity; and vessels can introduce or spread diseases to destination countries, threatening both human and animal life.
Beyond the animals, the harms of live export should concern everyone, particularly in the context of the right to a protected environment.
And if the environmental harm wasn’t enough, other human rights concerns and issues arise. Workers on these ships also face these hazardous conditions, long hours and exposure to zoonotic diseases — a risk underscored by recent global pandemics and occupational health research. As SA witnessed in 2024, the Al Mawashi “death ship” that docked (and shocked) Cape Town, exposed first-hand some of the brutal realities of live export.
While animal welfare and protection organisations, both globally and in SA, have for years taken a firm stance that live export by sea is incompatible with basic principles of animal welfare and protection (including Animal Law Reform SA, Stop Live Export, Humane World for Animals and the NSPCA), even outside bodies recognise its harm. Leading veterinary bodies such as the SA Veterinary Association, and meat industry bodies such as the Red Meat Producers Organisation, have expressed dismay at the suffering inflicted.
The minister of agriculture recently released draft Live Export Regulations for public comment, after the publication of nonbinding Live Export Guidelines in 2023. Framed as safeguards, the draft regulations perpetuate a deeply harmful industry, dilute existing protections and, through the infringement and disregard of constitutional rights and values, are arguably unconstitutional.
While the draft regulations include some animal welfare provisions, these are minimal and inadequate to ensure meaningful protection during live transport. For example, they are misaligned with the global minimum standards for live transport by sea set by the World Organisation for Animal Health (Woah), of which SA is a member, which include the “Five Freedoms”.
Furthermore, the practice of live export is arguably in contravention with our own local legislation — the Animals Protection Act 71 of 1962 — which prohibits confining or transporting animals in ways that cause “unnecessary” suffering, including exposure to extreme heat or inadequate food, water, shelter or rest (section 2(m)), among other acts of cruelty and neglect. We must ask — can we, as a country, really justify the inevitable suffering of animals during live export on these death ships to other countries as “necessary”?
Adding insult to injury, once animals leave SA waters the few domestic protections wash away with the tide, and the draft regulations contain no credible mechanisms for oversight, independent monitoring or enforcement, either on board or at destination ports. Without strong penalties and clear liability for violations, the regulations are a wolf in sheep’s clothing — failing animals, vulnerable workers, the environment and people alike.
Without strong penalties and clear liability for violations, the regulations are a wolf in sheep’s clothing — failing animals, vulnerable workers, the environment and people alike.
Importantly, however, the dangers inherent in live export cannot just be “regulated” out. Mechanical breakdowns, extreme weather, disease outbreaks and psychological trauma are unavoidable hazards of shipping live animals long distances. Recent catastrophic incidents such as the capsizing of a livestock ship transporting sheep to Djibouti earlier this year, which killed more than 160 animals, prove that no system of inspections or rules can guarantee welfare at sea.
The constitutional imperative to rectify these injustices is clear. In 2016 the Constitutional Court linked animal welfare to constitutional environmental rights and affirmed that animals are sentient beings with intrinsic value. The court emphasised that our “constitutional values dictate a more caring attitude towards fellow humans, animals, and the environment”. Society’s shared values, such as ubuntu, demand empathy not just for each other but for animals and our shared planet.
Proponents of live export justify the practice by citing economic benefits, employment and religious slaughter requirements. These defences tend to collapse under scrutiny, because not only can a profit margin or ritual not sanitise a system built on suffering, but financial gains disproportionately benefit a narrow group of exporters (and international companies) while people, the environment and animals shoulder the harm and externalities.
Other arguments relate to religious freedom, which is a critical and fundamental constitutional right. However, the Muslim Judicial Council Halaal Trust explicitly rejects live export by sea, emphasising that Islamic standards require transport free from physical harm or unnecessary stress, and that alternatives which honour religious practices without compromising welfare should be pursued.
Accordingly, the draft Live Export Regulations are not a safeguard — they are a smokescreen. They allow the continuation of an industry built on extreme suffering, while ignoring our constitutional commitments to justice and compassion. To keep sending animals to sea for nothing but limited commercial benefit is to exchange dignity for profit and trade away our compassion as mere cargo. SA must embrace a path consistent with our constitutional and societal values and protected rights.
SA’s opportunity to comment on the draft Live Export Regulations may have passed, but our responsibility towards protecting animals, people and our planet remains. Legislators, regulators and society at large must act decisively to ensure that live animal exports by sea is unambiguously prohibited, to demonstrate that cruelty has no place in our ports, our laws or our conscience.
• Tafani-du Preez, an attorney with Animal Law Reform SA, leads its corporate accountability programme. Ceaser is the organisation’s senior legal researcher.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.