SEOUL - A planned exchange visit to a United States town by South Korean high school students in 2022 was cancelled after animal activists there raised the issue of dog meat farms operating in the area the students are from, it was revealed on Friday.
Palisades Park, New Jersey – a twin town of Gangwha County in Incheon – decided to cancel the planned three-week exchange programme in June 2022.
The decision was made after some activists reported to the borough’s council about illegal dog meat activities in the Gangwha area. The activists shared videos of dogs being kept at those farms online.
Gangwha originally planned to send 12 local high school students to Palisades Park for a three-week exchange programme.
“We believe the issue is about cultural differences, and regret that the programme had to be cancelled,” a Gangwha county official said in a statement.
“We have changed the location of the programme to Thailand. We hope to continue our partnership with Palisades Park despite the latest issue,” the official added.
In July 2021, South Korean police busted an illegal farm in Gangwha and found 500 dogs kept in around 100 tight cages. In 2022, the authorities launched a separate investigation into a man who was found keeping some 80 dogs in a similar environment.
Animal Rescue Korea 119, a civic group that filed reports of the two dog farms, told The Korea Herald that there are at least 10 illegal dog farms still operating in Gangwha.
“Gangwha currently has the second-largest number of illegal dog farms in South Korea behind Gimpo,” Mr Lim Young-ki, the head of ARK 119 in a phone interview.
Gangwha County Office has been in talks with the group for a special monitoring system since 2021, he added.
Dog meat consumption is a long-standing controversy in South Korea.
According to a public opinion survey, conducted in May on 1,514 adults, a total of 55.8 per cent said South Koreans should stop eating dog meat, while 28.4 per cent said the practice should be preserved. THE KOREA HERALD/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
