The trade of horses exported live for meat is sickening and I appeal to readers to join the animal welfare group Viva!'s campaign against it.

Viva! has just launched an undercover video, Journey To Death.

It reveals the brutal reality of horses traded from Poland to Italy for meat.

It shows horses collapsed, abused, starving, dehydrated and dead - the most saddening and sickening examples of inhumanity to horses it is possible to imagine.

Each year, about 100,000 horses are exported from Central and Eastern Europe for slaughter in Italy, France and Belgium.

Viva!'s new video reveals that transporters are nearly all overcrowded.

This and the swaying of the lorries often causes horses to fall, struggling desperately to regain their feet.

Once down, they are trampled, urinated and defecated on and wounded by their companions.

At staging points, fallen horses are either dragged off the truck with chains or subjected to violent treatment to induce them to stand.

This can involve brutal kickings, beatings with heavy sticks or having an electric cattle prod inserted into their rectum.

By the time horses reach Hungary, just half way through their journey to the Italian abattoirs, many are injured, dehydrated, collapsed or dead. Rest periods are ignored.

At the slaughterhouse, horses are driven or dragged from the lorry. Here, stunning methods are often ignored or carried out incompletely so the animals regain consciousness while their throats are slit.

Many are slaughtered in front of their companions.

Poles do not eat horses and are keen to see a ban on live horse exports. We have to act now to stop this trade.

Please support Viva! and help to end this cruelty.

Contact Viva! at 12 Queen Square, Brighton BN1 3FD, call 01273 777688, email info @viva.org.uk or visit the web site at viva.org.uk

-Kat Macmillan, Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals, Queen Square, Brighton