14 DAY TRIAL // It was not very long ago when green-oriented group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) first became aware of the fact that Stein Mart was in the business of providing its customers with apparel made with rabbit fur.
Since PETA is dead set on getting the fashion industry to quit abusing and torturing animals supposedly for the sake of style and beauty, it comes only natural that the group has decided to go against Stein Mart and its not so animal-friendly ways.
Rather than stage yet another peculiar protest, PETA decided to become one of Stein Mart's shareholder, and use the “power” it acquired together with this status to force the company into listening to their pleas.
This is not the first time when PETA resorts to buying shares in a company whose working agenda does not see eye to eye with their life principles. Thus, this organization is also a shareholder in cosmetics company Revlon.
“PETA has purchased stock in the Stein Mart department store chain in an effort to push the company to end its fur sales,” reads the organization's official website.
Furthermore, “This step means that PETA will be able to attend annual meetings and submit shareholder resolutions, and it plans to do both.”
According to PETA, much of the rabbit fur used to make the clothes marketed by Stein Mart comes from China, where workers use electrical devices to stun the animals prior to skinning them.
In other countries, the workers resort to practices such as smashing the rabbits' skulls and breaking their necks.
“The fur trade is revoltingly cruel because it steals the skin off animals' backs at the cost of their very lives,” argues PETA Senior Corporate Liaison David Byer.
“By becoming stockholders, we'll get a leg up and be able to take our case directly to the people who own Stein Mart—namely, other shareholders,” this greenhead went on to add.