LIP PLATE: One of the many Gender Based Violence practices hidden in our traditions and cultures.
In a part of Africa - Ethiopia to be precise- women and girls are made to wear lip plates for protection and to make them eligible for marriage.
We do not want to imagine the depth of pain girls are subjected to in order to fit these plates in. In many cases, the holes are so big that it can pass through the head of the women leaving them completely deformed and unsightly to look at even though it is believed to be a sign of beauty.
When a Suri woman is about to be married, usually in her teens she is taken away from her home in the village to live in her family hut. The gap between her front lip and the flesh below is pierced and gradually stretched; a hole is made in the lip with a wooden stick.
The stretch continues to successfully allow bigger discs of clay or wood to be accomodated by the disfigured lip. Generally the two lower front teeth are pulled or knocked out to allow this process.
The size of the plates determines how many cattle the woman will receive as a dowry, so the more stretched her lip is the better, and the more the more cattle the woman is worth. Some women have stretched their lips so as to allow plates up to 20 cm in diameter.
#saynotogenderbasedviolence
#beautyordehumanization #saynotodehumanizingtraditions #africanculture #culturesandtrafitions #africa
Culled from Burning Hurt
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