Why not focus on human rights rather than animals being slaughtered?

A person wrote this to me: "A question. There's loads of people (humans...) that lives in very poor conditions, suffering from sickness, war e t c. Yet vegans tend to portrey veganism as the most important issue. Instead of putting all effort into not hurting animals and so forth, why not focus on problems that afflict the humanity?

I don't believe that veganism is the most important subject we're struggling with. This doesn't mean that I enjoy seeing pictures of animals being slaughtered. But rather the belief that a problem of more acute profile should be focused on more instense than animals.

Why not FOCUS on these problems, rather than animal being slaughtered?"

Thanks for your question!
What would you do if you saw someone abusing a dog or a cat on the street? Would you stop the abuse or would you think: ‘I don’t have time for this. I must go home and fight for human rights issues.”?

How can you say that the suffering of a dog is less important than the suffering of a human? Why would this be the case?
There is no moral difference between animal abuse and the exploitation of animals for food. There may be a psychological difference, but there is no moral difference. Exploitation is exploitation.

I truly believe that all injustices are interconnected. And consuming animal foods also exacerbates poverty, starvation and injustices in the world, destruction of the environment, enormous amount of health problems, etc. See e.g. this post and the provided links:
https://www.facebook.com/anders.branderud/posts/10202514031186660?stream_ref=10
Finally, I will end with a quote that I agree with:

“I don't believe in ranking evils. Indeed, I find it an absolutely absurd exercise. If someone asks me: "Is the slaughter of animals worse than the Holocaust?," I always reply: "Was Hitler's killing of Jews worse than his killing of non-Jewish Poles or Romanies?" If someone asks me: "Is racism worse than speciesism?," I always reply: "Is racism worse than sexism?" Anyway, I won't play the "ranking evils" game. I reject *all* forms of hatred, discrimination, and violence whether involving humans or nonhumans. Period.

I applaud the efforts of all those who devote themselves to the struggle for social justice and the rights of minorities, women, children, disabled people, the elderly, the poor, etc. The world is full of suffering and injustice. I support the efforts of anyone who seeks justice and who promotes peace and nonviolence.

I just ask them all to be vegans as they fight for justice in whatever context they do so. If, for example, you are working for children's rights, you still have to eat and wear clothes. So be vegan and consume non-animal foods and don't wear animal products. Encourage others to be vegan and practice nonviolence with respect to animals. You can do that whatever other rights movement you are involved in. I have made this point in my writing. For example, see”:
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/human-rights-and-animal-rights-perfect-together/#.UQU4hPLnd8E

Vegan reply to 'We are at top of the food chain, thus we should eat meat'

What food chain? This “But” is another way of asking whether our power and ability to exploit animals makes it morally right to do so. We would immediately see the problem if this “But” were raised in a context involving humans. For example, it was once argued that white western Europeans were naturally superior to Africans because the former were able to enslave the latter. There is no such thing out there as a “food chain.” It’s a concept that we have devised so that we can make our exploitation of animals look as though it has some basis in the natural world . It doesn’t. The proclamation that we are at the top of the food chain is equivalent to a proclamation that we are capable of oppressing and exploiting all of the other species on the planet. That may be true but it carries no moral significance. Are humans different from nonhumans? Certainly. Do humans have abilities that nonhumans lack? Certainly. But animals have all sorts of abilities that humans don’t have. Yes , humans can write symphonies (although most don’t by the way). But birds can fly without being in an airplane and fish can breathe under water without an air tank. What, apart from our self-interested proclamation, makes animal abilities worth less as a moral matter than human abilities?

The answer: nothing. But at the outset, we promised you that we were not going to challenge that bit of conventional wisdom that holds that although animals matter morally , they don’t matter morally as much as humans do. Our conventional wisdom holds that even if animals matter less, they matter some, and hurting or killing them requires a justification. Responding to the need for such a justification by saying that we are at the top of some non-existent chain is a way of saying that it’s okay to hurt and kill animals without any moral justification. And that’s just a way of saying that you don’t think that animals matter at all morally and that we can make them suffer and kill them just because we are able to do so. Actually, if you stop and think about it for a minute, you’ll see that our power and ability to exploit nonhuman animals gives us the responsibility to protect them from exploitation!

Francione, Gary; Charlton, Anna (2013-06-24). Eat Like You Care: An Examination of the Morality of Eating Animals (Kindle Locations 1249-1253). Exempla Press. Kindle Edition.