Last night I had a home-cooked meal at the house of Uruguayan journalist and single mother Laura Lacurcia – a working meal while producing our video about the animal cruelty in Uruguay.
In 2009, Uruguay passed its first laws prohibiting the mistreatment of animals by their owners. Unfortunately, the enforcement has not caught up with the legislation and still most Uruguayans are not aware that the laws exist, Lacurcia said.
Stray dogs and stray cats run rampant through the neighborhood streets and horses, conducted by the city’s homeless, drag ubiquitous chariots of trash across the city day and night. Other darker mistreatments, including bestiality, are widespread throughout the country, Lacurcia said.
A look inside
Last night, just before the sun went down, and the temperature dropped below 50 F (10 C), Laura, her eight-year-old daughter Victoria and I prepared a meal of vegan pasta at their home.
The two girls live in a small, shotgun-style apartment in the neighborhood of Villa Muñoz, the first of many cramped neighborhoods that extend into Montevideo’s northern sprawl from the coast. She does not like the neighborhood. It can be dangerous at night and the sidewalks are crumbling, she said.
On the first day we met, August 22, a pair of drunkards stood in the streets arguing and kicking glass bottles for hours at her street corner. This day was much calmer.
Her apartment is hidden from the street behind a metal security door and a long narrow hallway, which is open to the night sky. Upstairs, on the terrace, the sounds of Laura’s foster dog, Uma, announce our arrival.
“The mistreated one,” she said, with much sarcasm.
Raising awareness
Lacurcia, 45, works in radio journalism in Uruguay but most of her income comes from her two part-time jobs: answering telephones for a professional answering service and administering floral therapy.
Since June, she has focused most of her energy on researching and expanding her blog and Facebook page, Periodismo.Animal, she said.
“In Uruguay hundreds of people kill dogs, cats, horses and other animals,” Lacurcia said. “Hundreds of animals are tortured, burned alive, raped and murdered, and the perpetrators are left free. There are laws but they are not regulated.”
