We need to leave cruel sports in the past
Emma Slawinski talks to The House about her new role as the CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports
Emma Slawinski has been campaigning for animal welfare since her primary school days.
She vividly remembers watching the Grand National on TV as a child and being shocked at the number of horses who fell and were injured. She immediately wrote to the RSPCA, asking what the charity could do about it.
“They wrote back, which was wonderful,” she says. “They passed my letter to a Member of Parliament and I got a reply from them as well. My letter was passed to a minister and in my memory it wasn’t long after that that changes were made to the size of the fences. I think Becher’s Brook got lowered at some point around then. It gave me a completely exaggerated sense of my ability to change the world.”
That was just the start – she has dedicated her life and career to protecting animals and effecting legal change ever since.
This month (March), after previous roles at Compassion in World Farming, World Animal Protection and the RSPCA, where she was Director of Policy, Prevention and Campaigns, she takes up a new position as CEO of the League Against Cruel Sports. The League works to stop animals being persecuted, abused and killed for sport and was instrumental in helping to bring about the landmark Hunting Act 2004 and the Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Act 2021.
“When I started at Compassion in World Farming, it felt like coming home because I’d volunteered in animal protection organisations all my life,” says Ms Slawinski.
“I could never understand how some people were so compassionate and kind towards animals while others seemed to be in a very different position. Animals enrich our lives so much that protecting them seems an obvious thing to do. I believe that when animals flourish and do well, so do people. It’s never been a fluffy ‘aren’t they cute?’ sort of thing for me. It’s always been about the human condition, about what kind of people we want to be.”
She has worked on many campaigns but two that stand out are the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Act 2022, which recognised the sentience of animals – “their ability to feel pain but also joy and other complex emotions” – and the Animal Welfare (Livestock Exports) Act 2024, which banned the live export of animals for fattening and slaughter.
As a longstanding supporter of the League Against Cruel Sports, she was “over the moon” to be appointed as CEO.
“I’ve always been impressed by the League’s ability to raise awareness of what’s happening when it comes to cruel sports – but also to achieve change,” she says.
“My role feels like a tremendous responsibility but also an incredible opportunity and a real privilege. This is a 100-year-old organisation with a fantastic track record of changing the world for animals and an amazing team of dedicated staff and volunteers. I’m excited to get started and to see how we can build on that tradition to keep making the world a better place for animals.”
She is looking forward to working with parliamentarians on animal welfare, particularly on strengthening the Hunting Act and removing loopholes that allow hunts to carry on killing wildlife with dogs, and was delighted by the Government’s pledge to deliver “the biggest boost to animal welfare in a generation”.
The Hunting Act 2004 bans chasing wild animals with dogs in England and Wales, which means that fox hunting, deer hunting, hare hunting, hare coursing and mink hunting are all illegal.
“The Hunting Act was a milestone piece of animal protection but unfortunately there are loopholes that are being exploited by people who want to keep on hunting foxes,” she says.
“One example is that trail hunting is permitted under the Act, which is where a hunt might lay a trail for fox hounds to follow. We know that this is being used as a smokescreen. People are pretending that they’re going trail hunting as a way of seeming to comply with the law.
“The law is extremely difficult to enforce and we want to resolve that. Everyone is aware that fox hunting is illegal but it’s still happening. A lot of hunts are acting with impunity. Their hounds are completely out of control, running through people’s gardens or through livestock, and there’s also the cruelty to foxes that’s involved. It needs to be stopped.”
The League’s overarching objective is to end cruelty to animals through “so-called sports”, not only hunting with dogs but commercial game shooting, animal fighting and animal racing too.
“There is only one direction of travel when it comes to these cruel sports, and that is leaving them in the past – in the history books where they belong,” says Ms Slawinski. “The biggest lesson of my career is that if you stay committed and tenacious and refuse to give in then eventually the change you want to happen will happen.”
She is committed to working in partnership with other organisations across the animal welfare, environment, conservation and nature sectors – “as broad a range of people as possible” – to effect change. “My default setting is to be working in partnership,” she says.
She is keen to grow “the widest possible supporter base” and points out that there are many ways to support the League, including signing petitions, fundraising and writing to MPs. The organisation also runs an Animal Crimewatch reporting line for the public to report cruelty to animals in the name of sport.
Away from work, she spends her time in the West Sussex countryside. She has a rescue dog called Coco and two horses, Tori and Luna, a young rescue horse she adopted from the RSPCA. A huge fan of wasps, she was a founder of the Wasp Appreciation Society.
“It started out as a joke but I absolutely love wasps,” she says. “Bees get all the good PR but wasps are fascinating creatures who do amazing things – and we need them. It’s one of my missions in life to do some good PR for wasps but I’ll need time to give it more attention.”
