BEIRUT: With its leather and furs, the fashion industry doesn’t always have the best reputation in terms of animal welfare, but a new collaborative campaign between Fashion Beirut and Animals Lebanon seeks to change that. The second annual “Fashion Statement” campaign from the online magazine – last year’s issue focused on women’s rights – seeks to encourage people to respect their pets, and animals in general.

Designed to catch people’s attention through their high fashion style, the photos, which appear on several Lebanese websites and blogs, feature the slogan, “Best friends are not meant to be abused.”

The fashion shoot was directed by Rabih Salloum, the lead singer in the band Slutterhouse.

“The shoots are 100 percent fashion, but we try to tweak them to raise awareness of a social cause,” the singer said.

“In the general public’s view, people don’t see fashion as friendly toward animals. But we want to show that we’re 1,000 percent against animal torture,” he added.

At the same time, the campaign is designed to raise awareness of the issues surrounding animal abuse, which is currently not outlawed by Lebanese law.

“But the biggest problem is still ignorance: it’s not that people hate animals, but there is a lack of education,” Salloum added.

“Most people still go to a pet shop and buy puppies there, not realizing that they have been kept inhumanely.”

Many others do not realize that there are several animal shelters around the country where people can adopt unwanted animals in need of homes, Salloum said.

Or even worse, some people would not want to adopt a former street dog, seeing them as unclean, he added.

Animals Lebanon, which itself coordinates an adoption scheme for unwanted cats and dogs in Lebanon, and works to help other animals, such as chimpanzees and lion cubs, be re-homed to wildlife sanctuaries abroad, is currently working with the government on the implementation of an animal protection law.

In November the NGO presented a draft law to Agriculture Minister Hussein Hajj Hasan, who has since formed a joint committee with Animals Lebanon, and vowed to study the proposal and present a response within the next three months.

The draft law addresses stray animal control, would tighten up the unregulated trade of animals – in line with international standards – and would introduce regulations for pet store owners, who can currently open up shop without a license.

With the handing of the draft law to the ministry, the non-governmental organization also launched a petition, aimed at garnering public support for the cause.

They have since received over 6,000 signatures, and hope to see this increase to 25,000 within a year.

“There was a fear that once we launched the campaign, and the initial publicity was out there, that the issue would be dropped,” Jason Mier, executive director of Animals Lebanon, told The Daily Star. “But we’re very happy with how things are progressing,” he said.

“And it’s completely understandable that the government has other priorities, but it’s great that they’re now working with us,” he added.

Mier believes that people’s attitudes toward animals in Lebanon are changing, but that more still needs to be done.

“We are receiving around 50 to 100 phone calls a day from people who have witnessed animal abuse in Lebanon: we’re completely flooded,” he said.

“And this shows that people do care about the issue, but perhaps before they had no outlet,” Mier added.

Now the organization is focusing on building up even more public support for the cause, to show parliamentarians who will now be responsible for seeing the law passed, that “this is not just something that Animals Lebanon cares about.”

More information can be found at www.animalslebanon.org and at www.fashionbeirut.com