Shocking bullfighting video shows animal killed in front of children: 'It is an education of sadism'

WARNING: The above video contains graphic content that may be unsettling for some viewers.

New footage from inside a French bullfighting school shows trainers stabbing and killing bulls as children reportedly watch.

The video, recorded by European animal rights group One Voice, was published as part of an investigation into a bullfighting facility in the French city of Nîmes. It's part of the organization's ongoing campaign against what it calls "training centers for minors," which it reports children can attend once they turn 6 years old.

Part of the footage shows a young boy being pulled toward a bull, while another scene shows an older-looking boy approach one of the animals with a sword. Other more graphic scenes, in which children are not visibly present, show trainers stabbing bulls to death with swords.

One Voice claims that both children attending the bullfighting schools and those watching bullfights as audience members can be psychologically traumatized by these experiences.

"At the age when one begins to read and write ... they learn that torturing a living animal by planting spears and then pushing a blade into its body is acceptable and expected," One Voice's investigation, published last week, said.

The organization said its investigation included testimony from parents who presented their children with a bull so they could kill it. One parent reportedly told the group that after her son was forced to kill his first bull, he refused to return to the school for a year.

"How is it possible to encourage this, a killing by a minor, which is possible in the case of a rented and privatized arena," One Voice asked in its report.

Other European countries have also received criticism for allowing children to interact with bullfights. In 2018, the United Nations encouraged Spain to ban minors from attending the schools or witnessing bullfighting shows, arguing that the experiences could have "damaging effects."

"Bullfighting involves an extreme violence for childhood,” Gehad Madi, a member of the U.N.'s Committee for the Rights of the Child, told Spain's El Diario newspaper at the time. "Not only child bullfighters, but also those who attend as spectators. On the Committee we are very concerned about protecting children from being exposed to said violence."