Over the centuries, the donkey has carried the poor people. Now, when they steal the animal from an African family, the role of working cattle is given to women
To sell water and make a living, Steve relied entirely on his own donkeys. They hauled him in his cart loaded with the 20 tubes to all his customers. When Steve’s donkeys were stolen for their hides, he could no longer work.
On an ordinary morning, when he left his home on the outskirts of Nairobi and went to the fields to collect his animals, he did not find them. “I searched all day, all night and the next day.” Three days later, he received a call from a friend who told him he had found the animal skeletons. “They were killed, butchered, and their skin was gone,” the Kenyan told the BBC.
Donkey theft is becoming more common in many parts of Africa – and in other parts of the world where there are large populations of these working animals.
In China, a traditional medicinewhich is made with the gelatin in the donkey skin, is in high demand. Is called Ejiao.
It is believed to have health-enhancing and youth-preserving properties. Donkey skins are boiled to extract the gelatin, which is made into a powder, pills or liquid, or added to food.
Anti-trade campaigners say people like Steve and the donkeys are victims of unsustainable demand for the traditional Ejiao ingredient.
In a new report, Donkey Sanctuary, which has been campaigning against the trade since 2017, estimates that globally at least 5.9 million donkeys are slaughtered each year to supply the drug. And the charity says demand is growing.
In Africa, home to about two-thirds of the world’s 53 million donkeys, there is a patchwork of regulations. Exporting donkey skins is legal in some countries and illegal in others. But high demand and high prices for the skins are fueling donkey theft, and the Donkey Sanctuary says it has found the animals being transported across international borders to reach places where the trade is legal.
However, a tipping point may be coming soon as the government of every African country and the government of Brazil are poised to ban the slaughter and export of donkeys in response to the dwindling donkey population.
Solomon Onyango, who works for Donkey Sanctuary and is based in Nairobi, says: “Between 2016 and 2019, we estimate that about half of the donkeys in Kenya were slaughtered.”
These are the same animals that carry people, goods, water and food – the backbone of poor, rural communities. So the scale and rapid growth of the fur trade alarmed activists and experts and led many people in Kenya to participate in demonstrations against the fur trade.
The proposal for an indefinite ban across Africa is on the agenda of the African Union summit where all heads of state meet on February 17 and 18.
But could bans in Africa and Brazil simply shift trade elsewhere?
Ejiao makers used donkey skins originating from China. But according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs there, the number of donkeys in the country has plummeted from 11 million in 1990 to just under two million in 2021. At the same time, Ejiao has gone from a luxury niche to a popular, widely available product.
Chinese companies looked abroad for their leather supplies. Donkey slaughterhouses have been established in parts of Africa, South America and Asia.
In Ethiopia, where the consumption of donkey meat is taboo, one of the country’s two donkey slaughterhouses was closed in 2017 in response to public protests and social media outrage.
Countries including Tanzania and Ivory Coast have banned the slaughter and export of donkey skins in 2022, but China’s neighbor Pakistan accepts the trade. Late last year, media reports trumpeted the country’s first “official donkey breeding farm” breeding “some of the finest breeds.”
And it’s big business. According to Sino-African relations expert Prof. Lauren Johnston of the University of Sydney, China’s Ejiao market has grown in value from about $3.2 billion in 2013 to about $7.8 billion in 2020.
Faith Burden, who is head vet at the Donkey Sanctuary, says the animals are “absolutely intrinsic” to rural life in many parts of the world. These are strong, adaptable animals. “A donkey will be able to go maybe 24 hours without drinking and can rehydrate very quickly without any problems.”
But for all their qualities, donkeys do not breed easily or quickly. So campaigners fear that unless the trade is curbed, donkey populations will continue to decline, depriving more of the poorest people of a lifeline and companion.
Professor Johnston says donkeys have “carried the poor” for millennia. “They bring children, women. They carried Mary when she was pregnant with Jesus,” she points out.
Women and girls, Prof. Johnson adds, bear the brunt of the loss when an animal is taken. “Once the donkey is gone, then the women actually become the donkey again,” she explains. And there is a bitter irony in this, because Ejiao is primarily marketed to wealthier Chinese women.
“What we would like to see is for Ejiao companies to stop importing donkey skins and invest in sustainable alternatives – like cell farming (collagen production in laboratories). There are now safe and effective ways to do this.”
Faith Burden, deputy executive director of the Donkey Sanctuary, calls the donkey skin trade “unsustainable and inhumane.”
“They are stolen, potentially traveled hundreds of miles, kept in a crowded pen and then slaughtered in front of other donkeys,” she says. “They need us to speak out against it.”
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