For Gulzar and his family of 14, a donkey is the thin line between a modest living and dire poverty. The ‘beast of burden’, as the animal is colloquially referred to, pulls the 50-year-old and his cart loaded with 1,350 kilograms of structural iron across several miles every day.
The 38-minute journey, from New Karachi to Lyari and sometimes even beyond, earns Gulzar a daily income between Rs1,200 and Rs1,600, almost half of which is spent on the donkey’s upkeep. It is the bare minimum, but it is also what keeps his head above the water.
Over the last few years, however, rising prices of donkeys and their equally high mortality rates have put Gulzar in a tight spot. “Earlier, our expenses were aligned with our earnings, but now the work has increased,” he said. “Even if you buy an animal for Rs0.2 million, there is no point; it will die before you can utilise it fully. Donkey cart owners would be wealthy if these animals didn’t die,” rued Gulzar.
In Karachi alone, hundreds of daily wage labourers like Gulzar, whose income depends on donkeys, have felt the pinch. Muhammad Islam, 56, and Muhammad Rasheed, 41, who also use their donkey carts to transport structural iron across the port city, complained that scraping by had become harder with time as fewer healthy donkeys were available domestically.
Demand and supply
Donkeys were first domesticated in Africa nearly 5,000 years ago. Precise and latest figures are hard to obtain but reports estimate 500 million poor and marginalised people are dependent on working equids (horses, donkeys and mules) globally.
In Pakistan, the population of working donkeys stands at 5.9m, with the last three years seeing a steady increase. This has successfully helped the country maintain its spot among the list of places home to the largest number of donkeys, trailing just behind Ethiopia and Sudan.
In the past few months, local media reports have highlighted a surge in donkey prices, reaching as high as Rs0.3 million. Inflation is a pertinent issue across all industries in Pakistan, but the rise in donkey prices has been linked to growing demand from a high-value buyer: China and its multi-billion-dollar ejiao industry.
For animal rights advocates, China’s interest in sourcing donkeys, particularly for their hide, is not news. Of late, however, the global trade in donkey skin has become a geopolitical phenomenon where millions of donkeys are slaughtered every year to satiate a growing demand for ejiao, a gelatin used in traditional Chinese medicine made by stewing and concentrating donkey skin.
Pakistan, due to its proximity and close diplomatic ties to China, has been of particular interest to fuel this demand.
In April 2025, Federal Minister for National Food Security and Research Rana Tanveer Hussain met with a Chinese delegation that showed an interest in establishing donkey farms in Pakistan, citing the country’s favourable breeding environment. The minister welcomed the initiative, but said any formal agreement must protect Pakistan’s local donkey population.
The ejiao industry
Named after its birthplace Dong’e County in East China’s Shandong province, ejiao is considered among the top three tonics in traditional Chinese medicine. It boasts a cultural heritage spanning 3,000 years and has gained global attention over the last few decades as companies involved in its production expanded their reach and usage worldwide.
Google Trends shows a popularity hike of the search term ‘ejiao’ around 2016, with Indonesia, Singapore, China and Hong Kong showing the most interest by region. The Hong Kong Free Press attributes this surge to the television series, ‘Empresses in the Palace’, that began airing in 2011; one of the largest ejiao producers, Dong’e Ejiao, paid for its products to be placed on the show that subsequently appeared in at least 16 episodes.
Meanwhile, the Animal Welfare Institute reports the United States as the third largest importer of ejiao products with approximately $12 million in annual imports.
But what makes ejiao so sought-after?
As per a study published in Frontiers in Pharmacology — a peer-reviewed research journal — ejiao is widely used in clinics for its biological activities of anti-fatigue, immunity improvement, tumour suppression, and anti-anaemia effect. In traditional Chinese medicine, blood deficiency syndrome (BDS) refers to the pathological state of insufficient blood, but it differs from anaemia as understood in modern medicine; while both involve a reduction of blood cells or haemoglobin, the terms arise from fundamentally different medical systems.
Blood deficiency syndrome is more prevalent in women, a difference attributed to blood loss during menstrual cycles and hormonal changes during adolescence, pregnancy, lactation and menopause, all of which increase the body’s need for iron and calcium.
In the clinical trial of the cited study, although patients were recruited regardless of sex, the researchers found that of the 220 patients, 187 were females, indicating the popularity of ejiao among women. The results showed that ejiao alleviated dizziness, a major symptom of blood deficiency syndrome in patients, while improving hematocrit results, a blood test that measures how much of a person’s blood is made up of red blood cells as opposed to plasma. Simultaneously, ejiao increased the levels of white blood cells and the absolute neutrophil count.
Despite these benefits and its widespread popularity in traditional Chinese medicine, veterinary experts insist that obtaining donkey skins for the production of ejiao compromises animal and human welfare, public health, and the environment. Risks include potential exposure to tetanus, anthrax, and other zoonotic diseases. In 2019, for instance, an equine influenza outbreak in West Africa led to the deaths of 60,000 donkeys in Nigeria, which has been partly linked to illegal cross-border donkey transport.
Between 2013 and 2016, the annual production of ejiao increased from 3,200 to 5,600 tonnes, a 20 per cent yearly growth. But in the five years that followed, the production spiked by a whopping 160pc, requiring millions of donkey skins to keep up with the demand of China’s growing middle-class population.
In 2018, China’s biggest ejiao manufacturer raised the price of its products by 6pc, a decision based on the market supply and demand of donkey hides. China’s own donkey population has gone from 5.6m in 1990 to 0.86m in 2022, a staggering 80pc collapse, compelling the industry to turn to foreign suppliers, including Africa, South America, and Asia.
Foreign suppliers
Africa is home to two-thirds of the world’s donkeys, making it a lucrative source of donkey skins for the ejiao industry. Over the years, even though some local farmers in Africa benefited from the donkey skin trade, the fluctuations in donkey prices had an adverse effect on donkey-owning families.
“In most cases in Africa, the donkeys were being used in poor households and by sick people, refugees, and people living in remote regions, especially women and children,” said Dr Lauren Johnston, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s China Studies Centre, with expertise in China-Africa relations.
“So the ejiao-related demand for donkey skins not only led to the theft of these animals from poor villages but also interrupted an entire service that donkeys provide by carrying water from a well to a house,” she explained.
“And children have to drop out of school because they instead have to walk to the well and get water because there’s no donkey anymore.”
Donkeys play a multi-pronged role in African households; they save time and energy, and uplift the living standard of the poor in remote areas.
Unfortunately, as Dr Lauren highlighted, the rising demand and price of donkeys cut their socioeconomic role. To counter this, the African heads of state agreed last year to ban the trade of donkey skin, effectively ending the legal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of donkeys. The ban shifted the spotlight to Pakistan, and the close relations between Beijing and Islamabad further contributed to it.
The two countries are among each other’s top trading partners, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has repeatedly emphasised.
While the exact extent of the legal and illegal donkey skin trade over the last decade is unclear, data obtained from the General Administration of Customs (GACC) — a ministerial body monitoring the import and export of goods to and from China — shows that a total of 1,335,530 hides were imported from January to December 2023. Of these, six were countries from the African Union, namely Benin, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritania, and Nigeria, which exported a total of 780,021 hides. Pakistan, on the other hand, exported a total of 157,094 hides to China in 2023.
Similar data from 2024 indicates that Pakistan became the primary trading partner for hides following the African Union’s ban in February of the previous year.
It is, however, important to note that this data broadly covers all equine and bovine (cattle, buffalo, bison) skins and only reflects the legal extent of the trade without factoring in donkeys reportedly kidnapped or traded illegally.
“I can’t remember how many skins a year China had been getting from Africa, but if they can’t get those from Africa, they need to get them from somewhere else. And it seems the number one target for substituting donkey skins from Africa is Pakistan,” said Dr Lauren.
With respect to the latest meeting held in April between Rana Tanveer Hussain and the Chinese delegation, a ministry spokesperson told Dawn.com that the decision to establish donkey farms in Pakistan will be beneficial to the country’s economy as it will rely on local labor at every stage, including feeding, caretaking, and the management systems in place.
Economic asset for Pakistan
While Pakistan has predominantly supported the donkey skin trade, its official policies have contextually varied over time.
A few years ago, private Chinese companies expressed interest in animal trading with the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, particularly focusing on donkeys and proposed establishing the KP-China Sustainable Donkey Development Programme to develop and enhance the donkey population for exports.
However, the proposal did not come to fruition. “We had talks with the companies, but because they were private, the proposal did not mature,” said Dr Asal Khan, director general at the KP Livestock and Dairy Development Department (Extension).
“These kinds of agreements or MoUs are government-to-government. Since all these Chinese companies were from the private sector, and their main purpose was to buy donkeys from here and take them to China, we did not allow them to do so,” he told Dawn.com, adding that the animals were a source of income for the poor.
In 2015, the Economic Coordination Council temporarily banned the export of donkey hides; the primary concern was the disposal of donkey meat, and the ban was to last until all four provincial governments devised ways to discard the meat appropriately. Reports on donkey meat being sold as beef made Pakistanis apprehensive about donkey trade because the meat of a domesticated donkey is considered inedible or haram.
According to Dr Asim Faraz, assistant professor of livestock and poultry production at Bahauddin Zakariya University, if just donkey skins were exported, the flesh was likely to be consumed locally. “So if we are to export donkeys to China, the entire animal should be exported.”
Eventually, the ban was lifted after a few years. According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2023-24, protocols were signed to enhance the country’s agricultural exports to China, including one for exporting dried chilli in July 2023 and one for dairy products, donkey hides, and heated beef in October 2023.
In fact, in November last year, at an international donkey industry conference held in China’s Liaocheng, Pakistani officials highlighted Islamabad’s potential for the donkey industry and animal husbandry to become globally competitive with its neighbour’s assistance.
Majyd Aziz, a former president of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, attended the event and, in an interview, said that there is a need to establish designated factories for the slaughtering and processing of hides and meat to ensure it does not circulate in Pakistani markets. “The use of donkey carts will fizzle out over time,” he predicted, adding that it was better if the government bought donkeys from cart owners and replaced them with motorcycles.
Even with its operational status uncertain at the moment, Pakistan already has a donkey slaughterhouse in the agricultural park of the Gwadar Free Zone, where plans to establish farms are underway. Its sole purpose is exports, according to Muhammad Akram, former animal husbandry commissioner at the Ministry of National Food Security and Research. “There would be no consumption or any leakage in Pakistan,” he added.
While there isn’t any specific legislation that explicitly addresses the donkey skin trade in Pakistan, there are other related laws and regulations that indirectly govern animal welfare and trade. The Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1890, for instance, prohibits beating, overworking, or causing unnecessary pain to animals. However, it is a colonial-era law with minimal penalties — a small fine of Rs50 to 100, depending on the offence, and imprisonment for a one or two-month period.
Furthermore, the Punjab Animal Health Act (2019) focuses on the prevention, control, containment, and eradication of animal diseases to meet the international standards of import and export of animals and animal products. The hide of a donkey is not influenced by the overall condition of the animal, so there might be little to no incentive to ensure positive health states. Such an export could be a violation of this act.
What’s at stake?
Despite the economic opportunity that the ejiao industry presents and the government’s assurances to protect the local donkey population, it is estimated that about 36m people across Pakistan are dependent on equine labour and could be affected by the donkey skin trade.
Donkeys are an integral part of many of the country’s industries; chief among them being brick kilns, transport, agriculture, waste collection, recycling and even laundry. A study conducted by equine charity Brooke in 2019 estimated that one donkey transports 1,000 kilograms of non-recyclable waste and 100 kilograms of recyclable waste daily.
Dr Sher Nawaz, regional manager of Brooke Pakistan (Sindh), explained that one equine supports approximately six people, contributing to a daily income of around Rs1,000-Rs1,500. He also pointed out that the price of larger donkey breeds has doubled in the past five to 10 years, reaching up to Rs0.15m. Smaller donkeys, previously available for around Rs15,000, now cost Rs30,000 to 40,000.
For donkey owners in Pakistan, income usually depends on the type of work they get. In the brick kilns industry, for example, earnings per animal can range from Rs3,000 to Rs4,000 per day but this amount is divided among several labourers.
Sharing an incident from the 2022 floods, Dr Sher Nawaz recalled meeting a man in Hyderabad who could not afford his own donkey, so he rented one and used it to earn a living.
“The floods left the man devastated, but he was very grateful when support arrived; he told me he had two daughters and was entirely reliant on the donkey for his livelihood,” Dr Sher Nawaz said. “For families like his, losing a donkey is catastrophic. If their donkey dies, they often have no choice but to borrow money to buy another, just to start working again.”
However, the Pakistani market is now expanding, and demand is high, particularly from across the border. People frequenting the donkey market in Karachi’s Lyari narrate coming across Chinese customers who wish to purchase donkeys for consumption.
Kaalu, 65, remembers being approached by Chinese buyers six to seven months back. “But I refused because I know they slaughter the donkeys and use their skin for cosmetic purposes,” he recounted.
On the other hand, Majeed, who also sells donkeys, said that he sold unhealthy donkeys to Chinese customers. “They are willing to buy donkeys in any condition; in fact, sometimes they end up buying ten to twelve donkeys at once,” he added.
Similarly, at the other end of the city, unhealthy and disabled donkeys are being sold in Bhains Colony for as low as Rs2,000, Rs1,500, or even Rs800 to Chinese customers, who, according to Feroz, are typically accompanied by security guards. Feroz looks after the trading ground for private stakeholders and has been in the business since 2006.
The celebrity donkeys
Besides working in labour-intensive industries like brick kilns and waste management, donkeys in Karachi are also part of another integral cultural activity — the donkey cart race, a sport that is not only a source of pride for its participants but also entertainment for the communities that partake.
Amongst other prominent names is Abdul Hussain Pattak, a seasoned donkey cart racer in the sport since 1971. “This has been a passion of mine since childhood, whether it is donkey carts or cycling,” said Pattak, humbly bragging about the accolades he collected over the years owing to his donkeys Jalebi and Naya Daur.
The donkeys used in races differ from regular ones in terms of agility, clocking speeds of 40 to 50 kilometres per hour, with Pattak’s favourites originating from Makran, Balochistan. Along with barley, their owners feed them almonds, pistachios, and milk to ensure a better build while also willingly spending up to Rs800 on their daily upkeep. Pattak, however, even spent up to Rs1,200 on the maintenance of his beloved late Dumper, a racer donkey who won him multiple trophies over 10 years.
“I was once offered Rs0.3 million for him, but I didn’t sell. I said he would live out his life with us,” he recalled.
The races themselves are informal yet organised, Pattak explained, expanding throughout the city from Mauripur Road to Drigh Road, Malir, and Landhi. It is a self-funded endeavour, where cart racers place bets on their donkeys, who race in pairs, with the winner advancing to the next round; a series of races ultimately decides the final winner that claims both victory and a small cash prize. A weekly affair held on Sundays, donkey cart races typically attract a large crowd of around 2,000 to 2,500 spectators.
More than a workhorse
A donkey is, hence, not just an economic asset or a beast of burden. It is, in essence, a sentient and social animal that develops astrong bonds with humans.
According to a paper published in the academic journal ‘Anthropology Today’, donkeys and their keepers develop a kind of ‘mutualism’ or interdependence.
The study quotes the story of a donkey keeper who chose to buy a donkey over a motorised rickshaw despite the animal’s inflated cost. In the long run, this was a more viable choice both financially and emotionally. “Donkeys take care of their keeper and other domestic animals; when they spot danger, they protect by kicking and biting,” the man remarked. A rickshaw, on the other hand, is an inert and soulless piece of machinery only useful for transporting goods and people.
Referring to the Pakistani government’s decision to export donkey hides, the author of the study and director at South Asia Research Institute, The Australian National University, Dr Kavesh told Dawn.com, “Besides the economic factor, there is also an ethical concern. People who keep donkeys develop a bond with them and see them as close companions. They have not experienced donkeys being slaughtered before. Therefore, slaughtering and sending donkeys would create an ethical dilemma that the government might find difficult to address.”
Talking about the practicality of the donkey trade, he argued that there is no sustainable mechanism for donkey production in Pakistan. “For example, cows, goats, sheep, and chickens all have a sustained breeding mechanism, with access to veterinary hospitals, training of vets, associations (such as the Pakistan Poultry Association, etc.), and widespread local knowledge in villages. The reproduction of donkeys either happens in the wild or through some specialised dealers. There are not many specialised donkey dealers, so it will be crucial to see how the excessive demand could keep up with the limited supply.”
Unlike cows and chickens, who start breeding much earlier and more frequently, donkeys are slow to reproduce with an average gestation period of 365 days, following which they typically bear a single foal.
Long pregnancies and other species-specific factors mean that it is challenging to breed donkeys en masse like cattle, so Pakistan would need an enormous breeding herd and other infrastructural protocols to fuel donkey hide demand. Without these, donkeys might likely in fact be sourced from families that depend on them for their livelihoods.
Sustainable alternatives
In order to help protect donkeys from exploitation, Siân Edwards, the campaigns head at charitable organisation The Donkey Sanctuary, said there is a need to spread awareness of the skin trade and lobby governments to ban the trade or slaughter. Although the charity does not currently operate in Pakistan, it recognises that there are donkeys in South Asia, and its proximity to China makes it appealing for Beijing to source donkey skins.
“Awareness about the demand and ejiao products will also support the end to the trade if consumers decide not to buy, or indeed if the producers use less or no donkey skin and perhaps switch to a bio-identical lab-grown donkey collagen,” she said.
In October last year, animal welfare groups delivered over 370,000 petition signatures to Amazon to ban the sale of ejiao-based products, citing the slaughter of an estimated five million donkeys annually. A number of ejiao products are still available on the market, albeit with limited popularity. Data obtained using an Amazon analytics tool, Helium 10, shows that over the 26 months since it became available in December 2022, the price of one ejiao product consistently remained at $26.59, with relative sales hikes in April 2023 and October 2024. The data also revealed a low listing score of 6.8 (out of 10), indicating that it does not perform well in search results and customer engagement.
In recent years, cellular agriculture has also grown in popularity as a way of manufacturing products that would traditionally require harvesting from animals. A study published in the Annual Review of Food Science and Technology suggests that the priority of cellular agriculture is to manufacture agricultural products that are similar on a molecular level to those made via traditional agricultural methods.
However, cellular agriculture based on animal cells and tissue cultures is still in its infancy.
Furthermore, with ejiao originating from China’s Dong’e County and being revered as a rich cultural heritage and an integral part of traditional Chinese medicine, it is debatable whether lab-grown alternatives would come close to satisfactorily meeting the ejiao demand.
According to Dr Lauren, “This [ejiao] is such an ancient elixir — even if it’s just a placebo — it’s such a deep and rich placebo. The donkey is sacred to different people for different and contradictory reasons. And that’s just what makes this trade the most amazing. So you have these sorts of clashing values of the donkey; unfortunately, the donkey doesn’t breed very quickly, so it’s not possible to suddenly create lots of donkeys to meet this clashing demand.”
Header image: Subdued donkeys tied to carts stand at a market in Bhains Colony. — All photos by author
