This Is the Worst Country in the World for Animal Rights

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Oct 21, 7:30AM EDT

This Is the Worst Country in the World for Animal Rights — © t-lorien / Getty Images

Some animals are tortured by their owners. Others are abandoned or killed. These trends have caused the rise of “animal rescue” efforts across the country. The ASPCA says 3.2 million shelter animals are adopted each year. Of course, that does not help the countless numbers that are used in medical experiments while others are slaughtered for their fur. PETA puts the number of animals used for research at “millions.”

To gauge the problem across the world, The Swiftest has issued its Animal Rights Index for 2021. It examines the best and worst countries for animal rights from a universe of 65 countries.
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The ratings take into account a broad number of factors. The author wrote:

I utilized nine key factors including things like recognition of animal sentience and suffering, whether fur farming is banned, laws against animal cruelty and even meat consumption per capita to name a few data points.

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In particular, these factors were:

Recognition of animal sentience (which Merriam-Webster defines as “feeling or sensation as distinguished from perception and thought”)
Recognition of animal suffering
Laws against animal cruelty (which likely vary widely in terms of punishment)
National fur farm bans
Support for what the study describes as a “universal recognition of the United Declaration of Animal Welfare”
Meat consumption per capita
Percentage of protected areas
Pesticide use per hectare (which is 2.5 acres)
An environmental performance index rating

Each of the 65 countries is given a score with what the study calls an animal rights index. This index is used to create a grade from A to F.

The country with the worst score by far was China at 12.46 and a grade of F. By way of contrast, Luxembourg ranked first with a score of 519.68 and a grade of A.

China’s last-place spot was followed by Vietnam with a score of 45.24 and Iran with a score of 71.40. Both receive a grade of F as well.

Click here to read about the official pets and animals of each state.
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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.