Photos: Inditex Donates More Than $1 Million Worth of Angora-Wool Clothing to Refugees in Iraq

After Signing PETA’s Angora-Free Pledge, World’s Largest Clothing Retailer Gives Away More Than 30,000 Sweaters and Coats to War Victims

For Immediate Release:
October 9, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

When Inditex, the world’s largest clothing retailer, learned from PETA that live rabbits’ fur is ripped from their skin on angora farms, it adopted a permanent ban on angora wool. Now, the retailer—whose brands include Zara, Pull & Bear, Massimo Dutti, and Bershka—is distributing its remaining stock of more than 30,000 brand-new angora-wool garments, with a retail value of more than $1 million, to refugee camps in Sulaimaniya and Diyala, Iraq. Photos of the distribution are available here (photo credit: Ahmad Mousa/Demotix).

“PETA can’t bring back the rabbits who were slaughtered after their fur was ripped or violently cut from their skin, but we can still help those who have lost so much,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “Inditex’s gift is providing a little warmth and kindness in a tragedy-stricken corner of our world.”

As revealed in a PETA exposé of a PETA Asia investigation, some rabbits used for angora scream in pain as their fur is ripped out, while others are cut or sheared and invariably wounded by the sharp tools as they struggle desperately to escape. In addition, the angora-farming industry condemns these intelligent, social animals to years of isolation in small, filthy wire cages.

Inditex is part of a growing list of more than 110 top brands and retailers—including H&M, Ann Inc., bebe, French Connection, ASOS, Calvin Klein, Stella McCartney, and Tommy Hilfiger—that permanently banned angora wool after hearing from PETA, whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to wear,” and its international affiliates.

For a complete list of retailers that have ended angora sales, please click here or visit PETA.org for more information.