After a daycare center in Lower Saxony recently raised the hackles of parents by only serving sausages from halal-slaughtered animals, now a school in Gelsenkirchen, North Rhein-Westphalia, is also bowing to the demands of the Muslim population when it comes to food offerings. Starting next school year, Erle Comprehensive School will serve only halal meals, according to an announcement on the school’s website, Junge Freiheit reports. The catering company providing lunches for the school also supplies nine other schools in the city, all of which will now serve only meat prepared according to Islamic slaughter rules.
Around 60% of students in Gelsenkirchen have a migration background, with some districts seeing even higher numbers. Pork has already been banned in all schools since 2010, following a decision by the city’s food advisory board.
Other schools in Germany, including a special needs school in Baden-Württemberg, have also shifted to halal-only menus.
Experts have long predicted this trend, which follows the massive inflow of migrants from Muslim countries. In 2016, a former vice president of the German Nutrition Society said pork would gradually disappear from school menus. This is already happening, especially in areas with large Muslim populations like the Ruhr region.
Authorities tend to take the position that while the mode of slaughter is important to Muslims, other citizens probably don’t care that much how the animals that provide their meat are killed.
But some non-Muslim Europeans view halal-slaughtered meat being the ‘default’ offering as a form of religious accommodation that they have not chosen, or even a forced passive participation in a system they don’t adhere to. Certain Christians oppose consuming halal meat because the animal is dedicated to Allah, a deity they do not worship or recognize. And animal rights activists have opposed halal slaughter that does not stun the animal before its throat is slit and it is drained of all blood.
No word on whether German schools intend to cater to the religious food rules of the Jewish population—who do not consume halal foods.
