We were delighted to join Alex at Leaping Bunny certified ethical pet care company HOWND last week to collect her award from the company’s directors Jo Amit and Mark Hirschel, watched on by office dogs Laila and Roxy. As always we are over the moon to champion parliamentarians who show concern for animal welfare and take steps to help end the suffering of animals in laboratories.

 

Alex has been a strong advocate of animal welfare and has passionately supported our campaign to end cruel and unnecessary cosmetics testing on animals worldwide. Last year she joined shoppers and staff in stores of our campaign partners The Body Shop to show her support and sign the petition calling for the United Nations to adopt an international convention that will end animal testing for cosmetic products and ingredients across the world by 2020. The petition has now reached over 5.5million signatures.

 

On her passion for animal welfare, Alex said: “I’m delighted to receive this award from Cruelty Free International and to have had the opportunity to work closely on their campaign for a global ban on animal testing for cosmetics. With the range of cosmetic options and non-animal testing methods available, there is no reason for animals to suffer for our beauty anywhere in the world. The ban works in Europe and it can work globally too.”

 

This year marks the five-year anniversary of the European Union’s outlawing of the sale in Europe of new cosmetics tested on animals. However, despite the availability of approved non-animal testing methods and existing ingredients safe for human use, there are still no laws banning animal tests for cosmetics products and ingredients in 80% of the world. We estimate that over half a million animals – from rabbits to mice, rats, guinea pigs, and hamsters – are still used annually in cosmetics testing worldwide.

 

For those who haven’t yet done so, please remember to sign our petition to help end this cruel and unnecessary suffering for good.