People for Ethical Treatment to Animals (PETA), an international voluntary organisation which advocates vegetarianism, has urged buyers not to shop for clothes containing animal ingredients.

Highlighting some disturbing facts about the fashion industry PETA ( India) chief functionary Anuradha Sawhney said, ''Cows raised for leather suffer many forms of cruelty, lambs raised for their wool in Australia suffer through painful mutilations and 6,600 silkworms are boiled alive to make every kilo of silk.'' ''Ask your loved ones not to exchange gifts that contain animal ingredients such as wool, leather or silk,'' she appealed.

Ms Sawhney said the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) has termed leather a ''co-product'' of the meat industry and therefore, is valued more as an export.

A PETA investigator said, ''At the municipal abattoirs in Bangalore and Kolkata, workers including small children, violently pushed and dragged the animals to the slaughter floor, where they were made to lie in pools of blood, and guts removed from their dead brethren.'' Many highly toxic chemicals are used on leather to stop its decomposition, which has a detrimental effect on the people's health working in or living near leather tanneries, exposing them to numerous diseases such as prolapse of the uterus, cancer, nervous disorders, asthma and premature death including stillbirth, he added.

( http://news.webindia123.com)