Girls strip off for animal rights
Published 24 November, 2008, 18:20
Two activists have taken off their clothes in the centre of Moscow to protest against animal cruelty. They say standing naked in the cold is still infinitely better than what animals have to go through.
“Love us, don't wear us”- is the message that activists Lisa Franzetta and Lauren Bowey were delivering when they stripped down to their underwear.
“It's nothing compared to what the animals go through. They're in cages in all weather conditions. In summer it's awful and hot, they have a terrible time cramped together. And in winter they have to suffer through conditions like this,” said Lauren.
Lisa is from California and Lauren is from Australia but they're ready to sacrifice the warm weather to try to make people stop wearing fur.
“Animals die very painful deaths. Often their skins are pulled from their bodies when they are still fully conscious. And there's no excuse for killing them in the 20th century for fashion,” Lisa believes.
The two are members of PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. PETA claims that medical experiments, factory farms, and the clothing and entertainment industries are the four areas where animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time.
However, on the streets of Moscow, views are split on whether you can find a substitute for fur when temperatures drop way below zero.
“It's quite difficult without wearing fur. It's beautiful and it's necessary especially in our weather conditions,” one of the locals says.
“Real fur can seduce any woman. You can't do anything about it. But if there was a substitute of the same quality – I'd take it,” another one adds.
Lisa and Lauren don't plan to give up anytime soon. Russia was their first stop, next is Finland and Iceland in their naked mission against fur.
They’ve already taken part in similar protests in New York, Seoul, and other places throughout the world.
In the U.S., where in many places winters are relatively mild, wearing fur might be seen just as an attempt to follow the fashion.
But the average yearly temperature of most of European Russia is below freezing.
Northern Russia extends into the Arctic Circle. Many regions have half-a-year of snow cover over soil that is permanently frozen to adepth of several hundred metres. In Yakutia for instance average monthly temperature in winter is -40C.
So some say that the Russian climate means that wearing a fur hat and coat is more a necessity than a status symbol.
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