After years of ritual sacrifice, the Gadhimai Festival slaughter is banned in Nepal. Campaigns against these ritualistic mass killings by the Humane Society International and Animal Welfare Network Nepal have finally come to fruition. The festival has a 265-year-old history of animal slaughter, but on Tuesday, the Gadhimai Temple Trust agreed to put this archaic tradition to an end, according to the Huffington Post.
The festival celebrates the Hindu goddess of power and takes place every five years. It draws in crowds from hundreds of miles away with worshippers coming from Nepal and India to the Bara District, according to the Christian Science Monitor. It's the largest ritualistic mass slaughter of animals around the world, but these killings still continue on a smaller scale.
In 2009, this festival saw the massacre of an estimated 500,000 animals including water buffalo, goats, and chickens, according to the Huffington Post. With a rise in animal rights activism, and a ban against illegal transportation of animals across country borders, the number of animals slaughtered dropped to half that number in last year's festival, according to the Guardian.
There's been a lot of controversy surrounding this decision. Many believe it's a strike against Hindu culture and religion, and many believe it's a change that will be next to impossible to enforce. But the Gadhimai Temple Trust hopes to sway opposition.
"For generations, pilgrims have sacrificed animals to the Goddess Gadhimai, in the hope of a better life," said Ram Chandra Shah, the Gadhimai Temple Trust Chairman. "For every life taken, our heart is heavy. The time has come to transform an old tradition. The time has come to replace killing and violence with peaceful worship and celebration," he continued, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
