Animal Voice

In Celebration of International Day of Education - 24 January 2026

Here, Zimbabwe learners build empathy and kindness for each other, and animals too, through presenting the Five Freedoms Puppet Play. The Humane Education Trust thanks Susan Chenaux-Repond of the CARE organisation for making it happen!

Says Susan: “I have derived much inspiration from your Nature-Based Education online platform. We are a small team providing free veterinary treatment for the animals of the rural folk. The children in this photos are from Victoria Falls Primary School. They come to learn about our work as part of their career guidance programme. After listening to the talk by Dr Isaac Moyo, they will get ready to perform the Puppet Play."

To support CARE or to contact Susan Chenaux-Repond, please go to:
+263 (0) 77 889 3370 (WhatsApp)

Puppets ready for action!

Dr Isaac Moyo talks to the learners about being a vet

Your school too can perform the Five Freedoms puppet play

See the PUPPET PLAY in action here • Download the SCRIPT here

24 January 2026

Kind Attention:

Alysha Alva and Can Remzi Ergen

Hosts of UNICEF’s celebration of the International Day of Education

World’s Largest Online Lesson Plan

Cc:

Johannes Wedenig – UNICEF Representative, South Africa

Malcolm Plant – World Link Coalition

Dear Alysha and Can,

Thank you for inviting The Humane Education Trust to attend the World’s Largest Online

Lesson Plan in celebration of the International Day of Education. Your chosen theme –

“What does HOPE look like and what does HOPE feel like?” – was deeply compelling. I wasparticularly struck by the phrase in your video: “HOPE is a call to what is yet to be.”

Please accept our sincere congratulations on the success of the event. From 14-year-old Livvy in China, whose hope was to save Africa’s rhino from being hunted for its horn, to 13-year-old Abeera in India, whose hope was for leaders to halt “the bloodshed, violence, and industrialisation,” we witnessed raw and earnest HOPE expressed through the voices of

children who will inherit our beautiful and fragile planet.

Can’s reminder that HOPE is an action was especially meaningful. In that spirit, may we

respectfully suggest that the World’s Largest Lesson Plan for 2027 be centred on the recent

clarification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child through General Comment No. 26, paragraph 35.

GC26 paragraph 35 states that:

“Children must be protected from all forms of physical and psychological violence, whether

in their home or in society, and from exposure to violence, such as domestic violence or

violence inflicted on animals.”

As we understand it, UNICEF’s mandate is precisely to protect children from violence. We

now know that exposure to any form of violence erodes the innate empathy with which all

children are born. GC26 paragraph 35 explicitly seeks to safeguard that very empathy –

without which civilisation itself could not have evolved.

OPEN LETTER

Should this idea resonate with you, The Humane Education Trust would be honoured to

support such a lesson plan. We have a wide range of educational resources at your disposal,

all of which have been approved by the South African Department of Basic Education.

And perhaps, in the true spirit of hope-in-action, 12-year-old Bruce from North Wales and

13-year-old Thomi Fouskoudi from Greece might even put their heads together to invent an

app to track the global progress of GC26 paragraph 35 in action.

Thank you very much for considering this proposal.

With kind regards,

Louise van der Merwe

Editor | Animal Voice

Managing Trustee | The Humane Education Trust

Director | Nature-Based Education, Cape Town, South Africa

Mobile | 082 457 9177

Email | education@naturebased.online | avoice@yebo.co.za

Website | https://www.naturebased.education/ | https://www.animalvoice.org/

Champions for Change

MALCOLM PLANT, founder of the World Link Coalition, is a leading light on the road that leads to a kinder world.

Animal Voice editor Louise van der Merwe asks him why, in his view, many countries remain resistant to the UN decree that no child may be exposed to violence, including violence against an animal.

In this regard, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly references trophy hunting in South Africa.

Please see Dr Rinchen Chophel, Vice Chair and Rapporteur of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, speaking at the United Nation here...

Animal Voice:

Logic tells us that appealing to government bodies around the world to eradicate cruel practices should be a fairly easy ‘ask’. Yet, this is not so.

Malcolm Plant:

Firstly, we must remember that General Comment 26 is a clarification of the Child Rights Treaty and it is not an ‘ask’ but an obligation placed upon all 196 nations that have signed up to the Treaty. The UNCRC passed GC26 Paragraph 35 after conclusive evidence that children are psychologically harmed – possibly for life - by exposure to violence including violence inflicted on an animal. Thus, children must be protected “from all forms of physical and psychological violence whether in their home or in society, and from exposure to violence, such as domestic violence or violence inflicted on animals.”

Animal Voice:

As you have pointed out previously, GC26 Paragraph 35 has brought animal welfare into the Child Rights domain, an historic and hugely significant development in world ethics.

Malcolm Plant:

It is a massive doorway opened by the UN and we are the first to walk through it to explore what lies beyond!

Whereas previously and historically, animal welfare & animal rights organisations have sought to invite change by petitioning and inviting public outrage about cruel practices against animals, now however, animal cruelty is viewed as a violation of our children themselves and signatories to the Child Rights Treaty are legally bound to comply.

Animal Voice:

Please identify the major challenges we face in achieving this decisive change in global perception.

Malcolm Plant:

We have two major cognitive barriers to overcome. The first barrier is the way society has diminished the status of animals. This has become part of the culture of these societies.

The second barrier derives from the first, whereby governments and even global authorities have historically accepted and habituated practices that include violence inflicted on animals, as ‘cultural’ or ‘traditional’. However, GC26 Paragraph 35 establishes beyond doubt that animal abuse harms a child’s emotional and psychological development and cultural or traditional practices involving cruelty to animals must now be challenged under each country’s domestic law.

Animal Voice:

Culture and tradition run deep in our veins and are used as an excuse for a host of horrors.

Malcolm Plant:

But the fact is that none of us is born with culture and tradition embedded in our veins. A child has a natural empathy and compassion for all living beings. It is innate. This is undisputed and resiliently evidenced. However, when they are little more than toddlers, the conditioning begins. Animals which once were 'friends', become divided into species. The child learns to caress the one, but learns that harming the other, is normal; a numbing of natural sensitivity takes place, and with it, changes in the psychopathology of a child.

Conditioning is subtle but at its core, it creates cognitive dissonance and species diminishment, and it affects everyone.

Animal Voice:

So, one could say that GC26 Paragraph 35 specifically supports the preservation of the innate empathetic connection with which all children are born.

Malcolm Plant:

Yes, it provides a completely new and powerful vehicle for protection of the world’s children as well as its animals. Lawyers in several countries have started the journey to ensure compliance with GC26.

Animal Voice:

Research shows that reducing violence wherever it may occur, will reduce all forms of human violence too.

Malcolm Plant:

Yes, right down to dimensions unimaginable!

Animal Voice:

Thank you, Malcolm Plant, for your dedication to achieving a better world.

View our OPEN LETTERS here

No reply yet from Minister Willie Aucamp’s office

The South African Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment is responsible for issuing permits for trophy hunting. Animal Voice has alerted the Minister on a number of occasions to the UNCRC’s decree that no child may be exposed in any way to trophy hunting. We have requested confirmation of South Africa’s compliance. So far, there has been no response from the Ministry.

View our open letters here

GC25 Paragraph 35 is a hugely significant ethical advance

Here below, Animal Voice conveys its depth and historical weight by comparing it to the landmark shifts in world ethics that preceded it and changed the world.

1. The recognition of children as rights-holders in their own right

(UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989)

For centuries, children were viewed primarily as:
the property of parents, • economic contributors,
or future adults rather than present moral subjects.

The UNCRC marked a seismic ethical shift by recognising that:

children have intrinsic dignity,
their interests are not subordinate to adult convenience,
protection, development, and participation are rights, not privileges.

Including animal welfare within child rights mirrors this shift, by recognising that:

how children relate to animals is morally relevant in itself,
exposure to violence against animals harms children’s moral, emotional, and psychological development,
compassion is not a “soft value” but a rights-based concern.

This is an expansion of moral consideration, not unlike the original leap that created child rights at all.

2. The abolition of slavery and racism

(As an ethical analogy)

The abolition of slavery and more recently, racism, marked moments when humanity:

rejected the idea that one group exists solely for the use of another,
recognised suffering as morally intolerable regardless of utility,
expanded the moral circle beyond entrenched economic interests.

The inclusion of animal welfare in child rights similarly challenges:

the normalisation of domination and instrumentalisation,
the idea that harm is acceptable if it is “customary” or “profitable”,
systems that teach children that power justifies cruelty.

It confronts deeply embedded practices, not merely attitudes.

3. The recognition of women’s rights as human rights

(A 20th century global shift)

Women were long excluded from:

full moral agency,
legal protection,
public ethical concern.

Global recognition that private harms (domestic violence, exploitation, coercion) are human rights issues reframed morality itself.

Similarly, recognising animal welfare within child rights:

brings what was considered “private” or “incidental” into the sphere of public ethical concern,
affirms that cruelty witnessed or normalised in everyday life has rights implications,
rejects the idea that empathy is optional or culturally negotiable.

4. The emergence of environmental rights

(Late 20th – early 21st century)

Environmental rights reflect a shift from:

short-term exploitation,
to intergenerational responsibility,
to recognising that harm to the living world harms humans, especially children.

Animal welfare within child rights aligns with this by acknowledging that:

children inherit not only ecosystems, but moral norms,
exposure to suffering and violence shapes future societies,
ethical education is a form of protection.

Both represent anticipatory ethics — protecting future well-being, not just present harm.

5. The expansion of the moral circle

(Peter Singer / moral philosophy)

Philosophically, GC26 Paragraph 35 fits within the gradual expansion of moral concern to those once excluded. This is structural ethical evolution – an expansion of the moral circle that challenges longstanding norms, and affirms compassion, dignity, and responsibility as foundational to justice.

read our latest issue of animal voice - November 2025

Greetings to our valued readership

In this issue: countries around the world are already changing their laws to accommodate the inclusion of animal welfare in the Child Rights domain; South Africa’s finest minds explain why they add their unwavering support; a university survey reveals a 100% vote in favour of animal sentience being taught in high school.

READ HERE