Colombia this week became the first country in Latin America to restrict the use of animals for cosmetic testing, thus joining the nearly 40 nations internationally, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Israel, that have decided to end this type of testing.
The law signed by President Iván Duque also prohibits the import and sale of cosmetic products from abroad that have been tested on animals. It will come into effect in four years and will create incentives to strengthen laboratories and scientific institutions that “develop and apply alternative models to avoid the use of animal tests in this industry”.
“President Iván Duque sanctioned Law 2047 of August 10, 2020, which prohibits in Colombia the experimentation, import, manufacture and commercialization of cosmetic products, their ingredients or combinations of them that are subjected to tests with animals,”says a statement from the Government of Colombia.
“These incentives will be generated through funding grants convened annually by the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation during the 15 years following the promulgation of this law.”
Exceptions to the Law
However, this regulation includes some exceptions. For example, if there is no other way to certify the safety of an ingredient that may pose a risk to health or the environment. In the same way, exceptions will be made when the safety data generated through tests on animals for an ingredient has been carried out for a purpose other than cosmetic.
Various animal protection organizations have come out in favor of signing the law. This is the case of the NGO Animal Defenders, which highlighted the measure as a “victory” that will generate some impact among the other countries of the Pacific Alliance (Chile, Mexico and Peru).
The investigations in the cosmetics industry that use animals, according to the organization, “have exposed extreme suffering in cosmetic tests“, which is why they assure that “they are unnecessary and unreliable”.
