South Korea has taken another huge step in their legislative quest to ban the consumption of dog meat. Today’s (8 January) Legislation and Judiciary Committee meeting saw the passage of the proposed bill titled “Special bill on the End of breeding and raising dogs for food purposes, and the end of their slaughter and distribution”, which will be deliberated in the next Plenary Session of the Korean National Assembly, tentatively scheduled for tomorrow (9 January) barring changes. The deliberations of today’s meeting are as follows:

Agenda Item 77

Special Bill on the End of breeding and raising dogs for food purposes, and the end of their slaughter and distribution:

“Any activities related to the raising, breeding or slaughter of dogs for food purposes will be banned. Any dog farm, butcher house, distributor or related businesses will need to file their business names, addresses, capital equipment, and operating statements etc to the authorities. As the law to end the above activities, the provisions will offer financial support to legitimate businesses pertaining to the above while the government would also provide, where appropriate and applicable, compensations to entities who did not conduct illegal practices in their original business activities.