Forever 21 Under Fire After Gruesome Wool Exposés

For Immediate Release:

22 November 2018

Contact:

Sascha Camilli +44 (0) 20 7923 6244; [email protected]

FOREVER 21 UNDER FIRE AFTER GRUESOME WOOL EXPOSÉS

Protesters Mark Start of Christmas Shopping Season

London – Ahead of Black Friday, PETA supporters gathered outside Forever 21’s Oxford Street store wearing sheep masks and holding signs proclaiming, “#Never21” and “Stop Selling Cruel Wool,” to urge Christmas shoppers to avoid the brand until it agrees to stop selling wool.

Photos from the action are available here, here, and here.

The protests follow two new PETA video exposés recorded on sheep farms in Australia, the world’s largest exporter of wool and a source of wool used by Forever 21. The videos show workers beating petrified sheep in the face, deliberately mutilating them, and cutting the throats of fully conscious animals. The videos are PETA’s 10th and 11th exposés of the global wool industry since 2014, all of which PETA US has shared with Forever 21 – but the company has refused to act.

“Sheep are beaten and mutilated for woolly jumpers, coats, and scarves, and Forever 21 is profiting from this cruelty to animals,” says PETA Director Elisa Allen. “PETA is calling on caring people to give sheep some peace on Earth this Christmas by choosing only wool-free, vegan apparel.”

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear” – notes that one of the videos shows a farm manager carving swathes of flesh from lambs’ hindquarters with shears as they struggle and cry out. It also shows workers cutting and burning off their tails with a hot knife and no painkillers. A second video, shot by a PETA Asia eyewitness, reveals even more abuse: shearers are seen striking sheep in the face with sharp metal clippers, kneeling on their stomachs, and throwing them about.

Broadcast-quality video footage from PETA’s exposés of the wool industry is available upon request.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.uk.

#