SCARRY STORIES OF Hamer Girls and Women in Southern Ethiopia

Ethiopia's Hamar tribe females who are beaten with canes and scarred with thorns to prove their strength

1.Ceremonial beatings take place during the male initiation rites but also in the home when the husband chooses

2.Ritual beatings are carried out by a group of men called 'Maza', continue until the women's backs are left bloody

What is this now? We have reached to the best of our civilized world. Look at the other part of your world. Think of your sisters from the horn of Africa.

Why is always traditions attack women and girls?

When we come to early marriage, where it's allowed as a tradition, very young girls are given to very old men to be wives. That causes a lot of damage to the girls body. She die early or suffer from fistula and thrown to shacks. She is told she is a curse for the family. She is a shame for her family because she passes urine and ...she smells. The community gave her the problem and rejected her for having fistula.

TO be born like a girl in the developing country and also from a family who is tied with traditions and norms is just disastrous.

Look here in Hamer Tribe. Why is the beating? Why is the bleeding? Jesus!!!

I can't afford to be whipped.

Thick scars colored dull red and black cover the backs of women belonging to Ethiopia's Hamar tribe, the legacy of an initiation rite that sees them beaten bloody.

No screaming is permitted by the men wielding the canes but the women don't care. Instead of fleeing, they beg the men to do it again and again until blood flows, dripping into the gritty red dust of the Omo River Valley.

The worst part of the punishment; " She is bleeding and she is not allowed to cry."

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I'm screaming on behalf of the Hamer women and girls.

'While the boys walk on cows, Hamar women accompany him: they jump and sing,' reveals Lafforgue, who witnessed a ceremony.

'The more abundant and extensive the initiate’s scars are, the deeper the girls' affection is to the boy who is about to become a man.

'Totally committed to their initiated sons, the mothers are whipped to blood, in order to prove their courage and accompany their sons during the test.'

This is completely out of normal. How come the whole tribe is watching this quite? There are educated people from every side of Ethiopia. They have to speak out loud on behalf of them to stop this. The women with loads of work and too much beatings are walking, while their men, their whippers are riding on a cow's back.

Very annoying!

But for Hamar women, beatings are not just part of an initiation ritual - they are daily life until at least two children have been born.

Under Hamar rules, a man need not explain why he's delivering a beating. It is his prerogative to mete out as he sees fit.

Men can also have more than one wife, with junior wives left to do the lion's share of the planting and water gathering.

'They do not have really the choice,' says Lafforgue. 'As [with] many women in Africa, they carry water, wood, take care of the food and the kids, while the men take care of the cows - the Hamar treasure.

'Hamar men can have several wives,' he adds.'The Hamar women who are not a first wife have a really hard life and they are more slaves than wives.

This story is sickening to me. I don't know how the rest of the world is going to see it, The man is allowed to practice polygamy. The other younger or the newer wives are treated as slaves. The worst story ever in my life!

'[But] seeing those women with their animal skins, their special hairstyles, and their body covered with this orange make up was fascinating.'

The majority of the 20,000 strong Hamar people live in the Omo River Valley, a fertile part of the vast Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region of south-west Ethiopia, which is bordered by Kenya and South Sudan.

Most still live in traditional villages, although growing numbers are migrating to the region's cities and towns as well as the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

Cattle form the axis around which the Hamar's world revolves, evidenced by the fact that there are 27 different words to describe the colour of a cow in the local language.

Men spend the majority of the time caring for the animals, which are also used to pay bride prices when the man takes a wife - always a woman from the Hamar tribe - and generally amounts to 30 goats and 20 cows.

Cows also form part of the male initiation rite, which involves contenders attempting to leap over a row of 15 cows made extra slippery with dung. At the same ceremony, the man's sisters and other female relatives are beaten bloody to create a blood debt so the man remembers to help them should they face tough times in the future.

While cattle-leaping is relatively harmless, another practice, known as 'mingi' is more troubling. 'The Hamar tribe still practices ritual infanticide,' Lafforgue explains.

'If the first tooth appears in the upper jaw, instead of the lower, the child becomes what they called 'mingi' - this applies also to the baby teeth and the adult teeth when the kids are seven or eight.

'If a 'mingi' child is kept in the village by the mother, elders believe droughts, famines and diseases will come in the community, so they kill the babies.

LOOK AT THIS NOW: THE INNOCENT CHILD IS THROWN TO DIE. OH MY GOD! WHO CAN STOP THIS? TO ADOPT THIS KIDS IS NOT A SOLUTION. IT'S OKAY FOR THE TIME BEING, BUT THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE TAUGHT. THEY HAVE TO BE VISITED BY THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS. NO INNOCENT CHILD SHOULD BE THROWN TO DIE IN HAMAR.

Most 'mingi' children are left in the desert alone to die, although local charities now regularly check the area for abandoned children which are then raised in orphanages away from the tribe.

YOU can read more from mail online. WHAT A SCARRY TRADITION!