A cruel source of income

Cáceres, Extremadura. – The sixteen-year-old bull killer Jairo Miguel continues in his bloody bullfighting career. He made his precocious debut at the age f eight years old in Mexico, since in Spain it is prohibited for children below sixteen to fight bulls. Pushed by his parents, when other children were studying at school, subjects suitable for their age, Jairo Miguel was forced to drag his child´s cape in America, suffering injury many times. That a child should be courting public applause for taking these kinds of risks is a perverse and cruel idea and it should be one that no father should tolerate. But business is business, and the young man Miguel fought again last 6th February, gaining the sad and dubious ‘distinction’ of becoming the youngest bull killer to have murdered six young bulls in the same bullfight in Cáceres. As affirms Pilar Rahola, there is great shame in the greed and commercialism that can persuade a father to exercise his influence over his son so as to turn him into a source of money, with the feeble excuse of the supposed “art” of the performance. (February, 2010)