PETA Creating an Awareness or Traumatizing the Children? Check out the New Video

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) releases the new video and again there is a roar of hate comments on the social channels. This video named ‘A Soul like Mine’ shows two kids who are being asked about their favorite food. Both being non-vegetarian said meat as their choices and soon after a real alive chicken is placed in front of them. Slaughtering knives are given to them and asked to cut the chicken for food. Both the children were shocked and were unable to handle the situation. One of the children began to weep and said he can’t do such a thing.

The point here raises how much effective is this campaign that promotes vegan habits by spreading the fear. The Twitterati has picked up rage and some are saying such videos traumatize the kids. Some are also claiming that this is shaming the kids for their food choices. In reply to such comments, the authorities said, “The current situation is critical for billions of animals, & children need to understand the truth. They are taught what people choose to ignore, that living, feeling beings are slaughtered for food. With this knowledge, they are able to make compassionate & informed choices.”

Click here to watch the PETA video.

Previous initiatives

This is definitely not the first time that PETA is doing such a campaign. In 2005, PETA asked the children to run away from their daddies. The idea had always been to scare children and turn them into vegans and vegetarians, say the critics. PETA as a group formed with the mission to stop animal testing of consumer products. But later it shifted to animal protection. One of the most famous incidents that brought them into the limelight was the incident of throwing fake blood on fur coats. Women on the road wearing fur coats were attacked by splashing the fake blood. Later on, in a comic, they portrayed fathers as homicidal maniacs as they killed animals. The comic showed lunatic people slaughtering fish and the kids were there being asked to keep their pets away from their father as he would kill that too. Critics strongly oppose this saying that this would create a wrong notion about dads among kids and it is ruining the father-child relationship.

Critics have highly opposed this idea and said that PETA can do nothing better than mere publicity stunts. They have shown their disgraceful attitude before and they have been doing so right now with this new video. Critics also mentioned the ads that portrayed naked woman locked in cages and said that involving kids in such campaigns often goes too far. David Martosko said "This is traumatizing kids by the thousands. There's going to be long-term psychological damage from these techniques as the kids are being exposed to the material that PETA puts in front of them on a regular basis. "

Last year in September, PETA Members poured buckets of ‘blood’ on their body to show their protest against the seal slaughter in Canada. The members made their protest in Ottawa, Ontario where they poured blood from their head smearing the whole body. As the photos show the women members were seen without clothes and performing the protest. As per reports, PETA announced a similar protest in 2004, where they were planning to distribute “buckets of blood” in front of schools and KFC outlets. Other than this an activist in a costume is sent by PETA in schools to make the children aware through sharing leaflets that demonstrate the ruthless killing of the animals. The critics have condemned the effort saying that the children are being forced to quit dairy products and meat which are a part of nutrient. PETA is accused of distributing misleading cards to children who walk home alone. The card showed that the children are suffering from illness when they drink milk. Some experts are saying that this is so misleading as children are having calcium deficiency and having milk through being one of the best sources of calcium is not reaching the children due to such initiatives from PETA.

As per the records of the last financial year, PETA’s annual income was about $49 million and is considered among the richest and influential organizations working for the protection of animals. A lot have been influenced by their initiatives and many celebrities are also active members of the association. The critics say that it's easy for the financially affluent people to follow a vegan or vegetarian diet. For the socially and financially backward sections, it is not possible to afford the vegan options. For e.g., in the case of milk in developing countries. The availability of the cattle has made milk easily accessible and affordable. The population can rely on cow’s milk for nutrients. But soy milk is not affordable by all the sections of the people. Same goes for butter as peanut butter is much more costly than that of regular butter.

There have been great upheavals against the efforts of PETA by many communities. People have been saying that a food habit cannot be changed by force or by frightening little kids. Some are even mentioning the food cycle that makes it usual for humans to be dependent on animals for food. The supporters, on the other hand, are saying that a mistake has been made ever since and when there are options of having different kind of food why not have that and save the animals from getting slaughtered. A considerable section of people are saying that it is the choice of the individuals and if the awareness needs to be done on going vegan or vegetarian it must be done in a way that is not frightening and involve any cruelty. Pushing a traumatic experience among the kids and forcing them to stop having what they love to eat is basically a psychological torture that needs to be stopped soon.

What are your thoughts on this debate? Is PETA taking the right and effective course of making the new generation aware or this is being done purely to attract the eyeballs? If there is a better way of awareness what would you suggest?