The South Korean government will discuss a "ban on dog meat" and unveil a specific plan next week

The Paper's reporter Nan Boyi

The South Korean government will formally discuss a ban on dog meat, with detailed plans to be announced on November 25.

Yonhap News Agency reported on November 18 that the State Affairs Adjustment Office said on the same day that the government will submit a "plan to discuss and solve the problem of eating dog meat" to the National Affairs Inspection and Adjustment Meeting chaired by Prime Minister Kim Fu-hyun on the 25th to formally discuss whether to ban dog meat.

When President Moon Jae-in held a regular meeting with South Korean Prime Minister Kim Fu-chim on September 27, he asked the authorities to discuss a plan to ban dog meat. Since last month, the government has held consultations with the State Affairs Adjustment Office, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock and Food, the Food and Drug Safety Department and other relevant departments, and has agreed to solve relevant problems on the basis of forming a social consensus. It is reported that the specific plan will be announced after the meeting on November 25.

According to a pollster released by pollster Realmeter on November 3, 48.9 percent of respondents opposed government legislation banning dog meat, 38.6 percent agreed, and 12.6 percent had reservations.

This is not the first time that South Korea has taken regulatory action on the consumption of dog meat, the biggest action measure in recent years was the rectification of the "Peony Market", the largest dog meat circulation area in South Korea, in 2018, when Lee Jae-ming, then mayor of Seongnam City, Gyeonggi Province, rectified the "Peony Market", when Lee Jae-ming made a big move to close the illegal slaughtering facilities in the peony market and guide the industry to switch sales items.

However, according to the Gyeonggi Daily, as of September 2021, there are still at least 21 merchants selling dog meat in the peony market, which costs about 20,000 won (about 108 yuan) a kilogram, and can also buy dog meat at stores that sell tonic soup (dog meat soup).

South Korea's culture of eating dog meat has a long history, dog meat is regarded as a nourishing ingredient, especially popular in the summer, but in the international perception is not good, the issue of whether to ban dog meat has been debated in South Korea's first Summer Olympics in 1988 and the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018. French actress Brigitte Bardot even wrote to then-South Korean President Kim Young-sam in 1994, bluntly saying that eating dog meat was a "barbaric act" and demanding that the South Korean government do something about it.

According to South Korea's Livestock Law, dogs are classified as "domestic animals", but livestock that can be slaughtered and circulated are not included in the Livestock Products Sanitation Management Law, so dog breeding farms are not regulated by relevant laws and regulations. In the Food Sanitation Law, although livestock foods such as livestock products that can be sold or processed or cooked do not include dog meat, there is no provision explicitly prohibiting the consumption of dog meat, which makes it difficult for the authorities to effectively ban related merchants such as tonic soup shops.

Editor-in-charge: Hu Zhenqing

Proofreader: Ding Xiao