Dog fighting is deeply rooted in the Mexican culture, but it could soon be banned. Last week, the Mexican Senate green-lighted draft legal reforms which would, if passed, see organization of events banned at the federal level. Animal rights activists have been fighting against dog fight for many years, arguing that the dogs are brutally treated.
The new draft text of Mexico’s environmental law makes provision for a ban on the “organizing, inducing or provoking of dog fights,” and activists now hope the reform will see final approval within the next three months. As reported in El País. 

Dog fighting is also practised in countries like Japan, where no permits or licenses are required to fight dogs, so there’s no official record of how many fights happen each year. Teruaki Sudo, president of the East Japan Dog Fighting Association says his group holds eight or nine tournaments per year, while smaller groups might hold two or three. They are almost entirely sponsored by the Japanese mafia, or yakuza. Only five of the country’s 47 prefectures have laws against dogfighting. Tokyo is one of them. As reported in Newsweek last September.