Animal Cruelty Index: which country ranks the worst?

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As the world wakes up to the realities of industrial farming, one animal cruelty index calls out the worst offenders

The journalist and podcaster Ezra Klein once described going vegan as like waking up from the Matrix. Once you are attuned to animal cruelty, you see it everywhere and cannot fathom how humans not just tolerate but endorse a system that subjugates so many. 

Historian Yuval Noah Harari has called factory farming one of the worst crimes in history while others have likened it to slavery. 

Much of this is seen as joyless pontificating – and some of it is – but none of us can deny that animal cruelty goes hand in hand with industrial farming. (If you do deny it, then we recommend reading Eating Animals which provides a more comprehensive account of industrial farming than we can do here.)

Pigs suffer greatly in factory farming based on the Animal Cruelty Index
Simone Van Den Berg/Dreamstime Pigs are one of the most farmed animals globally

There are myriad initiatives to try to reduce meat consumption globally. There’s Veganuary which encourages people to go vegan for the month of January, there’s Meat Free Monday which advocates giving up meat for one day a week, and of course there’s the exploding popularity of plant-based milk. 

One of the most interesting initiatives we’ve come across is the Voiceless Animal Cruelty Index, also known as VACI, produced by the animal protection institute, Voiceless.

It's easy to view animals as a faceless mass
Jose Manuel Gelpi Diaz/Dreamstime It’s easy to view animals as a faceless mass rather than individuals

The VACI is an interactive index that evaluates and ranks countries based on the nature, extent and intensity of cruelty associated with farmed animal production and consumption in a sample of 50 countries that together account for almost 80% of the world’s farmed animal population.

The methodology

The VACI ranks countries using three indices:

Producing Cruelty assesses the number of farmed animals slaughtered for food every year (on a per capita basis), whilst taking explicit account of the fact that animals are treated and protected differently in each country. 

Consuming Cruelty assesses the consumption of farmed animals using the ratio of plant-based protein to farmed-animal protein consumed and the number of animals consumed in each country (on a per capita basis).

Sanctioning Cruelty assesses societal and cultural attitudes to farmed animals, as reflected in the quality of the regulatory frameworks that protect, or fail to protect, farmed animals. 

Australia is one of the worst offenders of animal cruelty
Steven Kollaras/Dreamstime Australia is one of the worst offenders of animal cruelty

Animal Cruelty Index: ranking

The table below lists the 50 countries in alphabetical order. Sort by: Overall Cruelty, Producing Cruelty (Prod), Consuming Cruelty (Con), or Sanctioning Cruelty (Sanc) below. The higher a country scores, the crueler it is to its animals.

Based on Overall Cruelty, Australia and Belarus are the cruelest countries to animals. Conversely, India and Tanzania are the least cruel.

RankCountryOverallProdConSanc
1India251.580 1314
1Tanzania251.320 814.3
3Kenya330.680 1117
4Nigeria371.260 518.1
5Sweden395.320 666
5Switzerland395.250 638
7Austria425.760 666.1
8Ethiopia451.070 324
8Niger451.170 723
10Philippines488.890 2815.1
11Italy496.870 5512
12Germany566.670 7010
13Uruguay578.960 4615
14Algeria617.390 2021
14Pakistan615.730 3022
16Indonesia6210.250 1320.1
17Turkey6712.310 4116.1
17Vietnam676.490 2725
19Mexico6810.320 6714.1
20South Korea6914.340 3814.4
20Thailand6917.070 2715.2
22Egypt729.340 1825.1
22France7211.060 7412.1
24Japan746.410 4923.1
24UK7412.460 779
26Denmark7612.770 827
27Poland7713.750 6813.1
28Azerbaijan819.970 3026.1
29China8310.190 3426
30Colombia8512.790 6916
30Spain8513.060 7813
32Peru8625.660 2717.2
32Ukraine8612.570 5220.2
34Romania8713.610 5518
34South Africa8714.040 6316.3
36Netherlands9022.320 768.1
37Venezuela9112.990 4423
38New Zealand9419.080 8110
39Canada9715.210 7415
40Malaysia9925.920 7014
41Chile10115.120 7317.1
42Morocco10416.490 3527
43Brazil11121.590 8715.4
44Russia11218.170 7419
45Iran11523.370 4228
46Argentina11615.170 9618.2
46Myanmar11627.920 5224.1
48USA12023.450 9816.2
49Australia12822.450 9920
49Belarus12837.690 6924.2

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Lead image: Lukas Gojda/Dreamstime

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Atlas & Boots is an award-winning outdoor travel blog, founded by bestselling author Kia Abdullah and travel writer Peter Watson. They have been to over 100 countries and all seven continents.