Donkeys: A Global Population Collapse for Chinese 'Ejiao'
Ejiao
What Is Driving the Demand
Donkeys have been working partners of rural communities for 5,000 years. Across much of Africa and Asia they are the primary means of transport, water-fetching, and small-scale agriculture for hundreds of millions of people — most of them women.
Since around 2010, the explosive global demand for ejiao (阿胶) — a gelatin extracted from boiled donkey hides and marketed in China as a health and beauty supplement — has triggered the largest decline in donkey numbers in recorded history.
The Donkey Sanctuary estimates 5.9 million donkey skins are now needed annually to satisfy ejiao demand. China's own donkey population has collapsed from 11 million in 1992 to under 2 million today. The shortfall is being met by industrial slaughter and theft from rural communities across Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Pakistan, Brazil and beyond — often leaving subsistence farmers unable to fetch water.
The Donkey Sanctuary's 'Stolen Donkeys, Stolen Futures' (2024) report puts the human cost bluntly: in surveyed Kenyan villages, a stolen donkey typically triggered a 30% drop in household income and forced children — usually girls — out of school to carry water on foot.
Theft and slaughter
How It Plays Out in Rural Communities
Donkey thefts have surged across East Africa, with documented cases of families waking to find their primary livelihood animal stolen overnight. Slaughter is frequently brutal: makeshift abattoirs, hammer blows, and skinning while still conscious.
Because donkeys reproduce slowly (12-month gestation, single foals) and are difficult to farm intensively, the industry is fundamentally an extractive one — sourcing from existing populations until they collapse.
Kenya briefly legalised commercial donkey slaughter (2016–2020) and immediately saw thefts spike 400%. The ban was reinstated in 2020 after protests from farming communities — an early template for the continent-wide moratorium that followed.
We don't need new arguments to act differently. We need new defaults.
Human cost
A Crisis for Women and Girls
In much of sub-Saharan Africa, water and firewood are still carried by hand — usually by women and girls. A working donkey turns a four-hour daily trek into a one-hour errand. Losing that animal is not a livestock loss; it is the loss of the household's mobility, income, and childcare capacity all at once.
Brooke, SPANA and The Donkey Sanctuary all report the same pattern: after a theft, girls are the first to be pulled out of school to take on water and firewood duties. The ejiao trade is, functionally, a girls' education crisis.
Progress
Africa Pushes Back
In February 2024 the African Union, representing 55 nations, voted unanimously for a 15-year moratorium on the export of donkey skins from the continent — a major win for the Pan-African Donkey Conference, Brooke, and The Donkey Sanctuary.
Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia and others have introduced national bans. China's response will determine whether the trade simply shifts to South America.
Enforcement is the next battle. Undercover investigations in 2024 already show ejiao supply chains re-routing through Latin America and Central Asia. Support for the AU moratorium — and for equivalent domestic bans elsewhere — is now the single most effective donkey welfare intervention available.
Donkeys
Key takeaways
The trade is extractive by design
Donkeys can't be farmed intensively, so ejiao supply comes from culling existing working populations until they collapse.
It's a women's rights issue
Every stolen donkey in rural Africa or Asia typically translates into a girl being pulled from school to carry water.
There is no medical case
Ejiao is boiled collagen. No peer-reviewed evidence supports its marketed benefits over ordinary dietary protein.
The policy window is now open
The AU moratorium and 10+ national bans mean the trade is more fragile than at any point in the last decade — public pressure matters.
Donkeys
Try one plant-based week.
The Donkey Sanctuary's 'Stolen Donkeys, Stolen Futures' (2024) report puts the human cost bluntly: in surveyed Kenyan villages, a stolen donkey typically triggered a 30% drop in household income and forced children — usually girls — out of school to carry water on foot.
Sources & further reading
- The Donkey Sanctuary 'Stolen Donkeys, Stolen Futures' (2024) — Latest global estimate of the ejiao skin trade.
- African Union Executive Council decision, Feb 2024 — Continent-wide 15-year moratorium on donkey skin exports.
- Brooke 'Under the Skin' (2019, updated 2022) — Field investigation of the ejiao supply chain.
- FAOSTAT donkey population data — China's donkey stock 1992–present.
- Kenya Veterinary Association Kenya Donkey Sanctuary reports (2016–2024) — Impact of the temporary legal-slaughter window.
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