It's not difficult to find beauty products stamped with a bunny logo, which denotes a cruelty-free status. While there is no legal definition of the term, cruelty-free is widely accepted to mean that neither the product nor its ingredients have been tested on animals. And while it may seem that the removal of animal testing from a product's safety trials is a very recent development, the concept actually has its roots in the 19th century.
A BRIEF HISTORY
It all started with one Frances Power Cobbe-journalist, philanthropist, activist and women's rights campaigner. During her travels through Europe in 1863, she came into contact with the mistreatment of animals-specifically, vivisection-and, appalled, started campaigning against the use of live animals in scientific experiments, speaking to the public and writing educational articles to spread the word.
To further her cause, Cobbe founded the Society for the Protection of Animals Liable to Vivisection (SPALV), the first organisation in the world to campaign against animal experiments, in 1875. This was followed by the establishment of the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection in 1898, which was renamed Cruelty Free International in 2015 to increase its reach and emphasise that it campaigns internationally.
The long years of hard campaigning by Cobbe and fellow advocates for animals' rights finally bore some fruit in the 21st century. In a groundbreaking move, the European Union (EU) banned animal testing for cosmetic products in 2003. This testing ban was extended to cosmetic ingredients in 2009, and in 2013, a complete sales ban on all animal-tested cosmetic products was implemented across the EU and the UK. In 2018, the EU Parliament even urged for a worldwide ban by 2023. Currently, only 41 countries, including Australia, South Korea, Switzerland and Taiwan, have passed laws that either limit or ban animal testing.
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