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, Consuming Cruelty, or Sanctioning Cruelty 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.

RankCountryOverallProducingConsumingSanctioning
14Algeria617.392021
46Argentina11615.179618.2
49Australia12822.459920
7Austria425.76666.1
28Azerbaijan819.973026.1
49Belarus12837.696924.2
43Brazil11121.598715.4
39Canada9715.217415.3
41Chile10115.127317.1
29China8310.193426
30Colombia8512.796916
26Denmark7612.77827
22Egypt729.341825.1
8Ethiopia451.07324
22France7211.067412.1
12Germany566.677010
1India251.581314
16Indonesia6210.251320.1
45Iran11523.374228
11Italy496.875512
24Japan746.414923.1
3Kenya330.681117
40Malaysia9925.927014.2
19Mexico6810.326714.1
42Morocco10416.493527
46Myanmar11627.925224.1
36Netherlands9022.32768.1
38New Zealand9419.088110.1
8Niger451.17723
4Nigeria371.26518.1
14Pakistan615.733022
32Peru8625.662717.2
10Philippines488.892815.1
27Poland7713.756813.1
34Romania8713.615518
44Russia11218.177419
34South Africa8714.046316.3
20South Korea6914.343814.4
30Spain8513.067813
5Sweden395.32666
5Switzerland395.25638
1Tanzania251.32814.3
20Thailand6917.072715.2
17Turkey6712.314116.1
32Ukraine8612.575220.2
24United Kingdom7412.46779
48United States12023.459816.2
13Uruguay578.964615
37Venezuela9112.994423.2
17Vietnam676.492725

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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.